Jetliners over nine states lost contact with air traffic control in flight on Thursday for approximately two hours. Radar and radio capabilities were restored after two hours, but the disruption to regional air traffic severely impacted operations at every airfield in the almost 400,000-square-mile region. Related Houston Hobby ATC Tower Power Outage Prompts FAA Investigation The outage comes as the FAA battles notable issues at US airports, most notably at Newark. For the planes in flight, the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System was a vital backup line of communications after ATC went dark. While the FAA's ground-based radar and radio towers in Farmington were completely dead, aircrew could still coordinate with Delta's Flight Operations Center in Atlanta.