You may have thought this stunning technical failure at Newark was a once-in-a-lifetime event:
For at least 90 seconds [on April 28], controllers [at Newark International] lost the ability to see planes on radar scopes and for a minute they could not communicate with pilots...
Now, you'd think the guys running the show over at Newark would relish their luck, count their blessings and say:
But who would've thought "Never Again" would be, you know, two weeks later:
Air traffic controllers who guide planes in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport lost radar and communication with aircraft before dawn on Friday in another 90-second outage, the Federal Aviation Administration said...
Like in the April incident, Friday's outage left controllers unable to communicate with aircraft and their radar screens dark.
Would love to see the inside of that ATC tower early on Friday morning:
What, exactly, is causing these outages? Well, apparently the April snafu was caused by "a fried piece of copper wire." But what about Friday's outage? As the Federal Aviation Administration put it:
"There was a telecommunications outage that impacted communications and radar display..."
A "telecommunications outage?" Like, what, the phones just stopped working?
Folks, you don't need me to tell you that our air travel industry seems like it has been in rough shape lately:
Now we're having regular critical infrastructure failures at one of the country's most heavy-traffic airports?
This is not gonna end well, folks.
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