FAA outage disrupts Northeast airports

An Amtrak construction crew accidentally severed a backup Verizon fiber line near New Brunswick, New Jersey, knocking out the primary circuit at Philadelphia TRACON - the radar facility controlling air traffic across the busy Northeast corridor - and forcing the FAA to ground-stop five major airports (Newark, JFK, LaGuardia, Teterboro and Philadelphia International) plus Boston Logan on September 21. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said repairs could take up to 13 hours; more than 1,000 flights were delayed or cancelled at Newark alone, with nearly 4,000 delayed and 500 cancelled nationwide, and Teterboro reporting delays over 255 minutes. United Airlines, for which Newark is a major hub, waived change fees for affected travelers. The outage landed with particular bad timing: roughly 130 world leaders and dozens of ministers were arriving in New York for the UN General Assembly the same day. Verizon said it bore no responsibility for the accidental cut, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called the incident evidence of 'the need for additional funding to modernize aging infrastructure.' It is not Philadelphia TRACON's first outage since relocating from Long Island in 2024 - a two-second radio blackout hit the facility last May, days after a separate fault triggered a ground stop for Newark-bound flights, despite officials' assurances at the time that upgrades would prevent further disruptions.

As it ran

21 September 2026

• Fiber cut by construction crew leads to ground stop and delays at several major airports CNN
• FAA equipment outage causing significant delays at Northeast airports CNN
• Ground stops at major airports after cable accidentally cut CNN
• Verizon says construction contractors severed a fiber line, causing an FAA outage affecting five Northeast airports, including JFK CNN
• Flights at major US airports delayed after cable cut by construction workers BBC News
• FAA halts flights to major US East Coast airports amid outage Al Jazeera