May 9 (Reuters) - The Federal Aviation Administration

said Friday that it suffered a new outage at a Philadelphia

facility overseeing air traffic at Newark Liberty airport, the

latest in a string of equipment woes that have hindered traffic

and raised public alarm.

The FAA said the telecommunications outage impacted

communications and radar displays at Philadelphia Terminal Radar

Approach Control that guides aircraft in and out of Newark

Liberty around 3:55 a.m. ET on Friday and lasted approximately

90 seconds.

WABC reported air traffic controllers could be heard on a

radio transmission telling a FedEx plane that their screens went

dark.

The latest incident highlights the air traffic control

network's aging infrastructure and comes a day after

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy proposed spending billions

of dollars to fix it over the next three to four years.

The FAA said Wednesday it was taking immediate steps to

address ongoing problems that have disrupted hundreds of flights

at Newark since April 28 especially from United Airlines

, the largest carrier at the airport located just outside

New York City.

The FAA said it is increasing air traffic controller

staffing, adding three new, high-bandwidth telecommunications

connections and deploying a temporary backup system to the

Philadelphia TRACON during the switch to a more reliable

fiber-optic network.

Duffy said Thursday that the FAA had two redundant lines

"both are up and working now" at Philadelphia.

The FAA did not immediately answer why the backup did not

prevent Friday's incident.

Newark has been hit by runway construction, FAA equipment

outages and air traffic control staffing shortages that prompted

urgent calls from lawmakers for investigations and new funding.

FlightAware said Newark on Friday is experiencing inbound

flights delayed averaging more than four hours and departure

delays averaging 1 hour or more.

Duffy said Thursday controllers overseeing planes at the busy

airport lost contact with aircraft on April 28 for 30 to 90

seconds, an incident that raised serious alarm.

The FAA last year relocated control of the Newark airspace

to Philadelphia to address staffing and congested New York City

area traffic.