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Sean Duffy: “On April 28th, there was a 32nd telecom outage. So we lost…”

Featuring: Sean Duffy, Republican | Secretary of Transportation | National

Sean Duffy and FAA Deputy Administrator Discuss Newark Airport Upgrades and Air Traffic Control Challenges

Published May 28, 2025 | Video Starts at 01:01

But going to Newark, obviously it's gotten a lot of attention. There's been a lot of disruption there. So I want to just continue a brief history of what took place On April 28th, there was a 32nd telecom outage. So we lost radar and we lost telecom. And then there was on top of that a 60 second reboot of the scopes of the radar. So for radar it was a total of 90 seconds and it was 30 seconds total time for telecom. (01:01–01:08)

CLAIM

Asserts a 30-second telecom outage on April 28th, resulting in loss of radar and telecom.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Sean Duffy

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“On average in Newark, they are running about 50, 54 flights an hour for departures. We've brought that down right now. Departures are at 28…”
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“We have an antiquated and old air traffic control system anywhere from 25, 35, 40 years old in some places.”
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“On May 9th, again, a 30 second outage, Scopes rebooted and that added another minute onto the timeframe in which we didn't have scopes or…”
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“At the Philly TRACON controlling Newark, we found that there was a problem, a glitch within our system.”
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“On May 11, the main line went down and the backup line actually fired. It worked.”
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“On May 20, there was a two second, we called it a radio outage, but it was static on the line.”
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“There's three issues. One, we have a Runway that's under construction. Two, we've had a telecom issue. And three, we have a staffing issue…”
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“Right now we have a Target Date of June 15th of bringing the Runway online.”
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“Verizon has laid a brand new fiber line between Philadelphia and New York.”
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“We should be able to turn over to this new fiber line at the start of July.”
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“We have 27 people. Of the 27 people, 22 are certified controllers and five are supervisors.”
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“In training right now we have 16 controllers in training.”
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“The House has put $12.5 billion into the infrastructure project.”
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“The permitting process needs to be cleared to avoid delays in the air traffic control system project.”
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“This is the most critical infrastructure project that this country has at this moment.”
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“Verizon laid fiber from Philly to New York in record time.”
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“The Philly TRACON for Newark had multiple outages last year.”
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“The last administration moved the Newark airspace from N90 down to the Philly TRACON and these lines were not built, they didn't use fiber.”
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“The system went down for 30 seconds in Newark on the telecom front at least.”
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“The last administration signed a 15-year contract to upgrade the telecom.”
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