East Coast flights disrupted after fiber cut disables Newark, Philadelphia air traffic control

A major circuit failure at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility caused the Federal Aviation Administration to halt departures at Newark Liberty International, Teterboro and Philadelphia airports on Monday. The outage was compounded when a backup fiber line was found to have been cut at a construction site in New Jersey, extending the disruption.

Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford said the damaged circuit could be replaced as early as Monday afternoon, but the fiber break would take about 13 hours to repair. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy noted that an Amtrak construction crew accidentally severed the fiber line, creating a telecom outage that forced the FAA to pause flights in the Northeast.

Initially, ground stops were limited to the three affected airports, but they were later expanded to include LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports in New York City. By mid-afternoon, flights were resuming at Philadelphia and LaGuardia, while Newark, Teterboro and JFK remained grounded. The FAA reported departure delays of up to 150 minutes at Newark and Philadelphia, with 368 flights canceled at Newark and 140 at Philadelphia as of 3 p.m. Eastern time.

A pilot contacting the Philadelphia tower asked about the long takeoff queues, to which a controller replied that the issue was equipment-related and that no further information was available. The incident highlighted concerns about aging infrastructure in the nation’s busiest air travel corridor.