NEWARK — A veteran air-traffic controller at the facility that handles flights in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport is calling for more resources and speaking out about the intense pressures workers face amid a staffing shortage and tech outages.

“It’s like playing 3-D chess at 250 miles an hour,” Jonathan Stewart told the Wall Street Journal in a recent interview. “Like anything else, you’re going to have a breaking point.”

Stewart supervises the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility that handles flights headed to or from the busy airport. A meeting of airline and FAA officials is underway Friday to discuss reducing the number of flights at Newark following recent weeks’ flight delays and cancellations fueled by runway construction, congestion and air traffic control staffing shortages.

The same TRACON facility also experienced blackouts on April 28 and May 9 that involved losing radar and screens going blank.

Stewart is among several traffic controllers on trauma leave, including some who were shaken by the blackouts, which left them unable to talk to planes or see where they were located.

“I don’t want to be responsible for killing 400 people,” he told the Journal.

His testimony is one of the first public narratives of overworked and understaffed US controllers, who are combatting the declining working conditions, alongside aging infrastructure and outdated technology. The problems at control towers and facilities overlay an ongoing stress passengers feel over a string of technology outages, close calls and fatal accidents.

Stewart – who has been writing plane callsigns in a notebook fearing another blackout – said he averted a potential mid-air collision between two aircraft flying nose-to-nose at the same altitude on May 4, the Journal reported.

On departure around 6:10 p.m. local time May 4 from New Jersey’s Morristown Municipal Airport – about 30 miles from Manhattan – a Gulfstream business jet and Pilatus PC-12 plane conflicted, “resulting in a temporary loss of separation,” the FAA told CNN. The Gulfstream pilot was given correct instructions from controllers, it said.

Feeling shaken after the close call, Stewart said he sent an email to FAA managers criticizing their leadership and is now speaking out to set the record straight about controllers, the Journal reported.

While the controllers who manage Newark’s airspace are elite, they need more resources to be able to do their jobs, Stewart told the Journal.

Five controllers took a 45-day trauma leave after the outage on April 28 caused their radar screens to go blank for 90 seconds and their radios to go out for 30 seconds during the busy afternoon.

Thirty-eight certified professional controllers are needed to operate the facility, yet only 24 of the positions – 63% – are currently filled, according to the FAA. Sixteen of those controllers are due to return to a New York FAA facility next year.

Challenges abound at Newark

During the April 28 incident at Newark, a primary telecommunications line failed and a backup line did not kick in, FAA Deputy Chief Operating Officer Franklin McIntosh testified Wednesday at a Senate hearing.

The data lines were installed after the facility moved from New York to Philadelphia in July. Similar systems are in use across the US, said McIntosh, who acknowledged the tight staffing at TRACON, including just three controllers working all Newark arrivals and departures for over an hour Monday night.

Two similar incidents have occurred at Newark’s airport within the last week. On Sunday morning, the FAA said it implemented a ground stop for flights heading to Newark because of a “telecommunications issue.” On the early morning of May 9, another 90-second radar outage happened.

The moment blank screens inside the Philadelphia TRACON facility came back online during the May 9 outage was captured in video obtained by CBS News. CNN has not been able to independently verify its authenticity.

The Philadelphia facility, in part, guides aircraft approaching Newark airport before it hands off the planes to the airport tower, and it guides planes that have just departed the airport.

Authorities have been working to address the challenges at Newark. The FAA created an “emergency task force” to make sure the airport operates safely, its acting Administrator Chris Rocheleau has said.

And this week, the agency initiated the “delay reduction meeting” with major airlines in hopes carriers will agree to limit flights ahead of the busy summer season to minimize cancellations and delays at the airport. United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Spirit Airlines and Allegiant Air all attended.

As for the personnel shortage, staffing will be increased at the Philadelphia facility, and there is a “healthy pipeline” of training classes filled through next July, the FAA has said.

But hiring and retaining controllers has been tough. The current shortage of air traffic controllers is near a 30-year low, according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, which represents 10,800 certified air traffic controllers across the country.

The control facility responsible for traffic at Newark has been “chronically understaffed for years,” United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said in a message this month about the delays. The shortage was compounded by over 20% of FAA controllers who “walked off the job” last week at Newark Airport, he said.

Stewart said controllers hadn’t “walked off the job” and aren’t to blame for the recent delays, the Journal reported, adding safety events might not be stressful initially but can have a cumulative effect.

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