NJ fiber-optic cut forces ground stops, flights resume
The Federal Aviation Administration said that flights at Newark Liberty, Philadelphia International, JFK and LaGuardia resumed on September 22 after a fiber-optic cable cut in New Jersey was repaired, with cancellations falling to about 5% at Newark and 2% at Philadelphia. 6abc Philadelphia reported the repair and CNBC reported the reduced cancellation rates. The outage began on September 21 when a shared communications circuit failed, prompting the FAA to impose ground stops at the affected airports, according to NBC New York.
NBC News added that the severed fiber line disabled air-traffic control systems at the Philadelphia TRACON. The incident highlighted concerns raised in a recent GAO report about the vulnerability of the FAA’s communication systems to spoofing and jamming, as noted by The Guardian.
