2 Major US Airports Experience Terrifying Air Traffic Control Outages

Two major U.S. airports experienced air traffic control outages on Sunday (May 11), leading to mass cancelations and delays, the New York Post reports.

Newark Liberty International Airport experienced its third air traffic control outage in less than two weeks during an incident that resulted in 80 flights being canceled and more than 60 being delayed during a 45-minute ground stop. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport experienced a separate outage due to "runway equipment issues" that resulted in delays and ground stops to nearly all its flights shortly after.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a statement claiming "technicians are working to address the problem" at around 10:30 a.m. on Sunday.

“An equipment outage at ATL’s Air Traffic Control Tower is currently causing delays for inbound and outbound aircraft. For further details please contact the FAA. In the meantime, we encourage passengers to contact their respective airlines and visit ATL.com for further information on their individual travel itineraries,” an FAA spokesperson said via 11Alive.

The issue in Newark once again stemmed from issues with its Philadelphia-based air traffic control center.

“There was a telecommunications issue at Philadelphia TRACON Area C, which guides aircraft in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport airspace,” the FAA said in a statement obtained by the New York Post. “The FAA briefly slowed aircraft in and out of the airport while we ensured redundancies were working as designed.”

No flights were diverted during the latest Newark Liberty International Airport outage, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. The airport had previously experienced a radar malfunction Friday (May 9) morning, as well as a 90-second radar and radio outage at the TRACON facility on April 28.