The Federal Aviation Administration said that an air traffic control equipment outage at the Philadelphia approach control facility, which guides aircraft in and out of Newark, occurred around 3:55 a.m. on Friday morning, May 2nd, 2025. The agency said it affected communications and radar displays for “approximately 90 seconds.” It’s the facility’s second outage since April 28, when screens went dark for 60 to 90 seconds and prevented controllers from talking to aircraft. Operational issues, coupled with bad weather and runway construction, have caused hundreds of delays and cancellations at the airport over nearly two weeks. In addition to known under-staffing issues, there are rumors of stress-related health problems among air traffic controllers. Is there anything sinister behind the radar screens going dark, suddenly?

This is entirely sinister despite attempts to find local mechanical explanations to make these events seem unrelated. They are a part of a pattern done in conjunction with other outages and malfunctions of electrical and cyber systems dependent on energy and technological performance of a sophisticated sort. This is another example of the ongoing ramp up in things aviation-related to cause crashes and near misses as part of the overall raising of fear about dependence on technology, and to make an increasing awareness of vulnerability inherent in relying on your technology and its infrastructure. They are turning the screws to get the most bang for the buck, so to speak, of the coming power outages to cause widescale harm.