A power outage Friday afternoon left the air traffic control tower at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport out of touch with dozens of planes for roughly four minutes.

It started when the power went out after a car crash on Wilkinson Boulevard at about 3:30 p.m., said airport spokeswoman Haley Gentry. Backup generators ran for 55 minutes before they overheated and failed, forcing controllers to switch to handheld emergency radios.

Charlotte Air Traffic Control Union President Ben Murray said there were 23 commercial flights arriving, and 12 departing. Half a dozen smaller, private planes were also out of touch, Murray said.

“We had 41 aircraft in the air that we could not talk to for a period of time, and that’s dangerous,” Murray said.

Controllers were able to get in touch with all but six of the planes using handheld radios. Those six planes were all on a radio frequency for westbound departures, Murray said.

During the outage, 12 inbound flights were placed in a holding pattern, Murray said.

The Federal Aviation Administration says the handheld radios worked fine and communication was never lost, but the controllers say there were several minutes they had no control.

“We were tempting fate -- I don't know how many more times we can do that without a disaster happening,” Murray said. “Luck was definitely on our side today.”

Murray said this is the third time in the last two years that communication has failed in this way.

“It’s amazing that a major disaster hasn’t happened yet,” Murray said.

(WCNC reporter Michelle Boudin contributed to this story.)