A series of alarming technical outages affecting Newark Liberty International Airport in the past few weeks have many asking what exactly happened, and whether it’s even safe to fly in the U.S. anymore.
An air traffic control facility in charge of airspace around the airport has suffered three communications outages in two weeks, including a 90-second radar and communications blackout on Friday.
Then on Monday, an outage affected a control facility in Denver.
None of the incidents caused planes to collide or crash. But no one is downplaying the seriousness of what happened, or the threat to safety it represents.
What actually happened at Newark airport
When a plane is in the process of taking off or landing, air traffic controllers in the airport’s tower are in charge. Since it’s a tower, they can physically see the planes they are controlling, as well as using radar and radio systems.
But a different group of air traffic …