A faulty copper wire triggered chaos at Newark Liberty International Airport, grounding flights and stranding travelers. On May 9, 2025, a 90-second radar and radio outage exposed the Federal Aviation Administration’s crumbling infrastructure. Bureaucratic neglect, it seems, flies higher than the planes.
According to the Daily Mail, a brief but crippling outage at Newark, caused by outdated technology, disrupted air travel nationwide, with similar failures reported at Denver and Southern California airports. The FAA’s reliance on 1990s-era systems, unprepared for modern data demands, left passengers fuming on Mother’s Day. Ignoring warnings, as usual, doesn’t fix the problem.
In April 2025, Newark faced another telecom glitch, a prelude to the May debacle. An internal FAA report, leaked to DailyMail.com, screamed what engineers already knew: the agency’s communications network teeters on collapse. Yet, the FAA’s response? Monitor the mess, don’t mend it.
“Monitoring a failure does not stop the failure,” said retired FAA engineer Rick Castaldo. His blunt assessment cuts through the FAA’s excuse of “built-in redundancies.” Redundancies don’t help when the core system is a relic.
The Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS), a Raytheon creation from the analog age, chokes on modern Ethernet data. Designed for copper wires, not digital highways, STARS triggers “traffic jams” that crash radar displays. Progress wasn’t on the FAA’s flight plan.
Southern California’s airports, including Los Angeles International, suffered repeated outages in 2022 and 2023. On June 16, 2022, 11 towers lost monitors; months later, 14 screens failed at smaller airports. By 2023, dozens more outages exposed a system stretched beyond its limits.
“It’s nearly the exact same issue that hit Newark,” Castaldo fumed, noting the FAA’s inaction. A national safety panel pinned the blame on congested Ethernet cabling, unable to handle radar data. Knowing the cause didn’t spur solutions—classic government efficiency.
At Hollywood Burbank Airport, a six-day communication failure followed workers manually unplugging the network. Southern California’s TRACON staff, tasked with thrice-daily signal checks since August 2023, caught 42 issues but prevented zero outages. Monitoring, as Castaldo warned, isn’t fixing. Newark’s radar feeds, processed in Long Island and routed 100 miles to Philadelphia, rely on a single copper wire. A pre-move analysis claimed a one-in-11-million chance of failure—yet here we are. Overconfidence in failing systems is a bold strategy.
“Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden did nothing to fix this system,” said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. His plan for new telecom lines and a three-year modernization to fiber and satellite tech sounds promising. But promises don’t land planes safely.
“Integrating a new system while maintaining 24/7 efficiency is like changing a flat tire on a car going 70mph,” a senior FAA official admitted. The bureaucracy’s resistance to change, entrenched and clueless, stalls progress. Fresh leadership, not patches, is the real fix.
Castaldo didn’t mince words: “Duffy is a smart guy but he’s up against an entrenched bureaucracy.” The FAA’s software patches and manual monitoring, approved by outgoing chief Tim Arel, are Band-Aids on a broken wing. Systemic rot demands a complete overhaul.
“The last outage was at 4 a.m.,” Castaldo said, relieved it avoided peak hours. A similar failure during bad weather or heavy traffic could spell disaster. Newark, the nation’s 13th busiest airport, isn’t the place to test luck.
The FAA boasts of “contingency plans” and “backup systems,” but as Duffy noted, the system “is showing its age.” Slowing air traffic during outages prioritizes safety but paralyzes travel. Redundancies, it turns out, can’t outrun obsolescence.
Recent aviation incidents, like January’s midair collision near Reagan Washington National Airport, underscore the stakes. “I would have serious reservations about flying into Newark,” Castaldo warned. When engineers lose faith, passengers should take note.
