Photo: Dmitry Taranets / iStock / Getty Images
Jacksonville, FL - A temporary radar outage struck the Jacksonville air traffic control hub on Friday due to a cut fiber optic line, yet backup systems allegedly prevented any flight disruptions.
The Federal Aviation Administration stated that radar and communication systems briefly went offline at the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center, which manages approximately 1,600,00 square miles of airspace across five Southeastern states.
Fortunately, automated backup systems activated instantly, allowing operations to continue without delays or cancellations.
Repair crews from a local telecom provider and L3Harris were quickly dispatched to restore the severed line.
The rapid response contrasts sharply with radar issues that occurred earlier this year at Philadelphia’s air traffic center.
In that case, backup systems took nearly 90 seconds to activate, causing significant delays and leading to hundreds of flight cancellations at Newark Liberty International Airport.
The incident also led to five air traffic controllers taking trauma leave.
Investigators later blamed the failure on aging copper wiring that still underpins much of the national aviation infrastructure.
Following those failures, U.S. transportation officials, including the Secretary of Transportation, renewed calls for an extensive overhaul of the country’s outdated air traffic control systems.
Plans are underway to invest billions of dollars into modernizing the technology, with a strong focus on expanding fiber optic networks and improving system redundancies.
While the Jacksonville outage underscored vulnerabilities in physical infrastructure, it also highlighted the importance and success of well-designed emergency systems.
FAA representatives confirmed that there was no loss of essential air traffic services and credited the backup technology for ensuring air safety across the Southeastern region.