The Department of Transportation’s inspector general has launched an audit into the relocation of the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control facility responsible for flights at Newark Liberty International Airport. The decision to move the controllers from Long Island, New York to Philadelphia last July sparked controversy among controllers and their union.

The relocation has been under scrutiny since April when the facility experienced multiple radar and communication system outages. The audit memorandum mentions two 90-second blackouts in the spring, which have raised concerns about the management of the relocation. The Secretary of Transportation requested the audit to review the impact on system redundancy, controller staffing and training, and operational resilience.

While the move was completed under the Biden administration, documents show that it was planned during the first Trump administration. This includes an engineering plan that was completed one month before the 2020 election. Despite this, former President Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have repeatedly blamed the Biden administration for the outages and issues.

Duffy has defended the plan, but also stated that the Biden administration “bungled this move” by not properly securing the telecom lines that transmit radar and flight data from Newark’s airspace to the control facility in Philadelphia. He addressed this at a news conference earlier this year, stating that the system was at a higher risk without addressing the underlying infrastructure.

The audit is scheduled to begin in August, according to the inspector general. The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.