Air traffic controllers lose radar and radio contact with planes approaching and departing Newark for 90 seconds – again

Air traffic controllers handling flights approaching and departing Newark Liberty International Airport experienced another outage early Friday morning.

The blackout included losing radar for about 90 seconds at 3:55 a.m. local time, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.

“There was a telecommunications outage that impacted communications and radar display at Philadelphia TRACON Area C, which guides aircraft in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport airspace,” the statement noted.

“FedEx 1989, I’m going to hand you off here. Our scopes just went black again,” an air traffic controller directed a flight that had just taken off, in audio recorded by the website LiveATC.net. “If you care about this, contact your airline and try to get some pressure for them to fix this stuff.”

The FedEx plane, bound for Boston, was then directed to contact controllers at a different frequency.