United Airlines flights were resuming as scheduled at Newark Airport after a power outage at the airline’s control tower there severely backed up outgoing flights, officials say.
The FAA says that some sort of equipment problem or outage caused delays of over two hours at Newark Airport Monday evening. Six United Express flights were also canceled, according to the airline.
The Port Authority says the United Airlines control tower at Terminal C experienced a power outage shortly after 5 p.m. Power was restored about 45 minutes later, but it went out again shortly afterward.
Power was again restored shortly after 7 p.m., and has since been running, and flights have resumed, the Port Authority says. There were no residual delays, according to United.
It’s not clear what caused the outage.
United Airlines has a hub at Newark Airport and makes up a large percentage of the airport operations there.
One passenger tweeted a photo from inside a plane held on the runway, saying, “This has been my view for 2 hours as we’re stranded at Newark Airport due to power outage.”
He added, “We just had to turn off the engine to refuel since we’ve idled for so long.”
United Airlines responded to him in a tweet, saying the flight was delayed “due to air traffic control conditions impacting our flight operations.”
Another passenger complained: “Radios are down and they are trying to manage comms with walkie-talkies and cell phones. Huge delays.”
NBC 4 New-York
Power outage causes massive delays for United Airlines flights at Newark Liberty Intl
