A failed backup telecommunications line led to a recent 90-second radar and radio outage that left air traffic controllers unable to see jetliners heading into Newark airport.
After the primary connection that carries radar data into the Philadelphia facility where controllers guide planes into the busy hub failed, a second line to provide redundancy “did not kick in like it was designed to do,” Franklin McIntosh, deputy chief operating officer for the Federal Aviation Administration’s Air Traffic Organization told a Senate panel on Wednesday.
That triggered a 90-second radar outage at the facility, he said.