A little after 2 PM local time yesterday a power outage brought air traffic departures to a stop at Newark’s Liberty International Airport. The outage was due to an equipment failure at a power switching station as workers were upgrading some equipment.
The outage affected not only the entire airport but also much of the surrounding area which included the cities of Hillside, Elizabeth, Union, Newark, Roselle, Linden, Kenilworth and Irvington.
Air Traffic Control was not interrupted by the outage as their systems have back up power. Arrivals into the airport were not affected and all landed safely. Departures were significantly delayed however. While the airport did have back up power running for some basic systems and limited lighting, most of the gates did not have the power to check tickets and board passengers.
Once power was restored, a little before 5 PM, there was a back-log of aircraft all boarding and trying to depart at the same time.
In all, authorities with the PSE&G utility reported that about 20,000 customers were affected by the interruption in power.