Aviation: What changes after the blackout at a US airport

Two brief system outages at US air traffic control have shocked the industry. The infrastructure is outdated, and Donald Trump is planning a multi-billion dollar program. Will Europe follow suit?

It shouldn't have required any further proof that something urgently needed to be done by American air traffic control. But the proof came nonetheless: At the end of April, the approach controllers at Newark Airport, New Jersey, suddenly saw nothing and heard nothing. The radar screens in front of them, on which the aircraft are identified as dots with their number, were black. They could also no longer reach the pilots, who, during this phase, had to line up their aircraft one by one in the landing sequence and wait for quick, precise instructions.