FAA Grounds Flights at 6 Airports After Fiber Cut and Circuit Failure
Updated
Updated · Fox Business · Sep 21
FAA Grounds Flights at 6 Airports After Fiber Cut and Circuit Failure
3 articles · Updated · Fox Business · Sep 21
Summary
Six airports across New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania were under FAA ground stops Monday after Philadelphia TRACON lost its primary circuit and a backup fiber cable in New Jersey was found cut.
Brian Bedford said controllers switched to backups only to discover the fiber break; a replacement circuit could restore TRACON service by 1:30 p.m. ET, while the damaged cable may take about 13 hours to repair.
The stoppage spread from Philadelphia, Newark and Teterboro to JFK, LaGuardia and Westchester, with the FAA posting estimated lift times as early as 2:45 p.m. ET.
Sean Duffy said the outage reflects known weaknesses in aging FAA telecom systems, and that broader upgrades are already underway but constrained until more funding arrives.