A construction crew cut a fiber-optic line in New Jersey on Monday, knocking out air traffic control equipment and triggering a ground stop at Newark Liberty International Airport. The outage spread to Philadelphia, JFK and LaGuardia, canceling and delaying hundreds of flights before crews restored the lines by evening.
Newark Liberty International Airport went under a ground stop around 10 a.m. Monday after a nearby air traffic control center lost equipment, forcing the Federal Aviation Administration to halt inbound flights. The outage also hit Philadelphia and New York's JFK and LaGuardia airports, delaying, diverting or canceling hundreds of flights.
Newark hit hardest
The airport absorbed the worst of it: more than 500 departing and arriving flights were canceled — nearly half of all scheduled operations — and over 200 were delayed. By early Tuesday morning, LaGuardia had 37 cancellations and JFK 25, with more than 400 delays at each, according to Flightradar24 data. Philadelphia saw about 240 cancellations and 530 delays.
As of Monday evening, LaGuardia and JFK remained under ground delays, while Newark and Philadelphia were no longer under delay.
A cut fiber line
According to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a construction crew caused the equipment outage when it "accidentally cut into a fiber line". FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told CBS News that the primary circuit, which was old and due for replacement, failed, and about 600 feet of backup fiber was accidentally cut out by a construction crew. The affected facility was the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control, or TRACON, which manages arriving and departing aircraft in the region.
Accounts of who cut the line diverged. Duffy initially said an Amtrak crew was responsible. Amtrak told Business Insider the incident happened on New Jersey Transit property and involved a New Jersey Transit contractor, not Amtrak. New Jersey Transit confirmed a contractor working near the line cut it, adding the crew was working about 10 feet from the markings indicating the location of underground utilities. Verizon told Reuters it owned the cut cable but that its own technicians were not responsible, saying it had deployed technicians to the site to help restore connectivity.
Diversions and lingering delays
Several Newark-bound flights diverted to destinations such as Pittsburgh and Detroit. A United flight from Bogotá to Newark turned around midway and landed in Orlando instead. Flights from Europe on Lufthansa and Swiss reversed course over the Atlantic.
Duffy said around 6 p.m. that the fiber lines had been fixed and that impacted airport operations were resuming, though it remains unclear how long the disruptions will last or whether airlines will offer compensation. Travelers who booked with certain credit cards may have options for delay or trip reimbursement.
Source: Business Insider
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