New Jersey’s Newark Liberty airport, one of three major airports serving New York City, had just three air traffic controllers on duty on Monday, which was well short of the 14 called for and forced air regulators to delay arriving flights for up to seven hours.
The air traffic controller shortfall, first reported by the New York Times, comes amid a growing number of problems for the hub. In a little more than a week, Newark has suffered three communications blackouts, rendering the control tower unable to track or communicate with planes for up to 90 seconds.
The most recent failure, on Sunday morning, came as government and airline officials have made multiple efforts to reassure airline passengers that flying into or out of the airport is safe.
But on Monday evening, during the 3pm to 10pm shift, the group that manages Newark air traffic from Philadelphia was operating with one or two fully certified controllers, the outlet reported – far fewer than the 14 controllers agreed on between the controllers union and air traffic control regulators.