LOS ANGELES, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Denver International Airport, one of the world's busiest airports, is investigated by U.S. aviation safety regulators for a communications outage early this week in which many planes could not contact with controllers, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Thursday.
According to the FAA, the incident occurred on Monday around 1:50 p.m. local time when a segment of the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center lost communications for approximately 90 seconds when both primary transmitters went down.
Air traffic controllers in Denver had to switch to an alternate frequency to direct planes, the FAA said, adding all aircraft remained safely separated and operations weren't affected.
However, the local Denver7 news channel reported that as many as 20 aircraft flying toward the airport couldn't reach controllers for up to six minutes.
Furthermore, the failure in Denver came after several high-profile disruptions occurred in nationwide major airports, especially in Newark Liberty International Airport of New York, renewing concerns over an air traffic system strained by old technology and a shortage of qualified workers.
The Newark airport had been hit by at least a pair of radar and radio outages in recent weeks that left controllers briefly unable to see or communicate with planes in the air.
None of the incidents resulted in accidents or injuries so far, but FAA and business insiders got nervous over those recent mishaps which stem from aging infrastructure and critical staffing shortage.
Airlines were reported by the Bloomberg that they had met with FAA officials in Washington this week to discuss potential reductions in flights at Newark to ease traffic snarls at the New York metropolitan area hub. ■
