A crippled airliner landed safely at Newark Airport thanks to a veteran pilot’s skill — but the radio system used by the ground rescue team crashed just when it was needed most, The Post has learned.
United Airlines Flight 634, its right landing gear malfunctioning, was approaching Newark on Sunday morning when rescue crews were alerted to race to the runway and prepare for a crash landing.
But by the time the teams were in place, their radios went dead, apparently because of utility work nearby.
“There couldn’t have been a worse time for it to go down,” a source said of the foul-up involving the Port Authority’s Air Fire Rescue frequency.
At 8:50 a.m., the emergency system alerted rescue teams to the possibly crippled airliner approaching Newark. But soon after, a sergeant on the ground realized he couldn’t communicate with his desk or other squads.
Using cellphones, cops alerted the crews to switch to backup frequencies. But by the time that happened, sources said, the Airbus had already safely skidded to its landing, with the 48 passengers and crew members on board scampering from the craft on emergency slides.
A PA spokesman confirmed that the first-responder frequency went down, but insisted crews were always able to communicate.
“The sergeant realized what was happening, and he told people they needed to switch frequencies to communicate with each other,” the spokesman said.
Sources said the radio failure was only one of a spate of police communications failures.
Airport patrol officers lost their radio contact at the same time the rescue frequencies went out, the sources insisted yesterday.
In addition, all parties had lost radio contact only hours before, from around midnight to 2 a.m., the sources said.
Cops were alerted by cellphone to switch to backup systems.
The problems began late Saturday, after utility crews were called to fix a major power surge at a PA facility in Hoboken, sources said.
Even Kennedy Airport was affected, losing the same communications capability between 10 p.m. Sunday to 2 a.m. yesterday.
The pilot at the controls of the United flight was Capt. Dale Nordhausen, 41.
“I’m really happy everyone was OK,” he told The Post when reached at his Illinois home yesterday.