Travel chaos spread across five major Northeast airports on Monday after construction contractors accidentally cut a Verizon fiber-optic cable.
Ground stops were imposed at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Teterboro Airport (TEB), Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) and John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), with some delays approaching seven hours.
Flights departing from LaGuardia Airport (LGA) in Queens, Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) and Philadelphia International Airport were also hit by ground delays.
Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford said Monday that the 600-foot fiber cable was severed “somewhere between” New Brunswick and Newark, New Jersey.
“Somebody dug it up,” Bedford told reporters, according to video captured by CBS News.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said an Amtrak construction crew accidentally cut the fiber-optic line, causing a telecommunications failure that disrupted flights across the region.
“This incident underscores the need for additional funding to modernize aging infrastructure and prevent disruptions like this in the future,” Duffy wrote on X.
The flight disruption came as 130 world leaders and dozens of ministers were arriving in New York for the annual high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
Flight tracking data showed dozens of planes sitting on the Newark runway, while passengers said they remained stranded for hours before being sent back to the gates
The FAA ordered flights bound for Newark Liberty International Airport to remain at their departure airports because of the continuing equipment outage.
The Newark ground stop was scheduled to continue until at least 4:45 p.m. ET, with a moderate possibility that it could be extended.
FAA alerts showed average passenger delays of three hours and eight minutes, while the longest delays had climbed to nearly seven hours.
A separate ground stop affected flights heading to Philadelphia International Airport. Those aircraft were held at their departure airports from 3:50 p.m. until at least 5 p.m., with a moderate chance of an extension.
Average delays at Philadelphia had reached four hours and 13 minutes, while some passengers faced waits of up to six hours and 27 minutes.
The FAA also directed flights bound for Teterboro Airport to remain at their departure points across the United States and parts of Canada.
That ground stop was scheduled to remain in place until at least 4:45 p.m., with a moderate chance that it would be extended.
Average delays at Teterboro reached two hours and 35 minutes, while the longest delay stretched to seven hours and 17 minutes.
More than 1,000 flights had been delayed or canceled at Newark alone. Across the United States, nearly 4,000 flights were delayed and 500 were canceled
The incident highlighted the vulnerability of the aging US air traffic control system, which Congress allocated $12.5 billion to upgrade last year.
Bedford said a replacement circuit had also failed, but added that service was resuming at JFK and LaGuardia. He said it remained unclear when flights would resume at Newark and Philadelphia.
A ground stop at Boston, which stopped accepting flights because of spillover volume, was also lifted.
The FAA will not restart the system for incoming flights at the affected airports ‘until we make sure the airspace is safe,’ Bedford said.
The loss of communications was tied to some frequencies at a Philadelphia air traffic control facility that handles air traffic for the airports, Bedford said. Then authorities discovered that a backup fiber line was accidentally cut by a construction crew in New Jersey.
At Newark alone, more than 1,000 flights had been delayed or canceled. Throughout the US, there were nearly 4,000 delayed flights and 500 canceled.
‘When it went to flip into the backup, we discovered that the backup fiber had a break, and that fiber break is probably 13 hours to repair,’ Bedford said.
‘It’s massive, I’m told. Meanwhile, we’ve got the new circuit ready to install now.’
