The latest on Newark airport equipment failures

Another meltdown at Newark Liberty International Airport today, this time forcing a 45-minute ground stop

Fox 5's Duarte Giordino is at the airport with a look at what caused the disruption and what's being done to fix it

So how long was your flight delayed? Three hours. She's one of thousands affected by another FAA-mandated ground stop at Newark Sunday morning

The FAA says there was a telecommunications issue at Philadelphia Tracon Area C

which guides planes in and out of Newark airspace. Radar screens briefly went dark, prompting the FAA to slow traffic as a safety precaution

That ground stop lasted about 45 minutes while redundancies were tested. Departures were halted, delays stacked up, and at one point, they stretched more than two and a half hours

Senator Chuck Schumer is calling this a dangerous string of failures. What we saw over the last few days is just scary

When these terminals go dark and there are so many planes flying above the public is freaked out On NBC Meet the Press U Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy acknowledged some controllers are also freaked out We lost a few controllers who were stressed out by the first connectivity that we lost last week

The U.S. Secretary of Transportation now plans to hold a meeting with every single airline that does business at this airport

so that they can agree on how many flights to cut and thereby reduce the stress on the air traffic control system

He says a new communications line is being built to link Newark directly to Philadelphia TRACON

So we think by the end of the summer it should be completed. With delays continuing to climb, more travelers say flying through Newark is becoming too expensive

More money, spending more money, so that's how I got affected by this

And while the FAA promises fixes are coming, Senator Schumer says Newark isn't just a local problem

It's a test case. Newark is a harbinger. What happened at Newark can happen all across the country

So if they fix Newark quickly, they can learn from it, and they can also assure the public that they're on top of things and actually know how to fix it

At Newark Liberty International Airport, Duarte Geraldino, Fox 5 News