Denver International Airport experienced a brief communications outage on May 12, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Friday. The incident came within weeks of a similar service disruption at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.
The air traffic control center in Denver, one of the busiest airports in the world, “experienced a loss of communications for approximately 90 seconds around 1:50 p.m. local time on Monday, May 12, when both transmitters that cover a segment of airspace went down,” the FAA told The Epoch Times.
The outage did not affect operations, said the FAA, noting that “controllers used another frequency to relay instructions to pilots” and that “aircraft remained safely separated.”
The agency said it is investigating the incident.
Denver International Airport referred The Epoch Times to the FAA.
The problem in Denver comes after a couple of communications outages at the Newark airport, which has also reported air traffic controller shortages.
On April 28, there was a 90-second outage affecting radio and radar communications systems. And on May 12, flights destined for Newark were held up due to air traffic controller staffing shortages at that airport.
“We didn’t have 3,000 controller shortages in the last 100 days,” he testified before Congress on May 14. “There were four years that came before where nothing was done, and watchdog groups have warned the DOT that the infrastructure was failing, and nothing was done.”
The FAA is looking to speed up certification of air traffic controllers amid the shortage.The outage at the airport in Denver was not the only incident there this year.
In March, 178 American Airlines passengers were evacuated from a plane that caught fire. A dozen people were hospitalized with minor injuries. The flight, from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Dallas, had been diverted due to an engine problem.
