Air traffic controllers say outages have become too frequent

Days after an equipment malfunction left planes flying blind over Newark airport, worried pilots and air traffic controllers are imploring the FAA to fix aging infrastructure.

Ten days after an equipment malfunction left about a dozen planes flying blind for 90 seconds in the crowded skies over New Jersey, worried pilots and air traffic controllers are imploring the Federal Aviation Administration to fix the system's aging infrastructure.

The "shell-shocked" controllers who guide planes in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport work in constant fear of radar systems' going down or losing radio contact with pilots as they're approaching one of the busiest airports in the country, a recently retired controller told NBC News.

Both of those failures happened at once on April 28.

“It’s everybody’s worst nightmare,” said Michael Donahue, who worked at Philadelphia International Airport for two decades and who, up until February, shared space with the controllers who handled the flights into Newark. “Every time, the FAA goes back and says this won’t happen again. It keeps happening.” 

Donahue, 53, said there were at least half-a-dozen times when the radar they used to track planes suddenly stopped working. He said they lost radio contact with pilots on almost a weekly basis.