A major circuit exploded Monday at the Philadelphia facility that controls air traffic to Newark Liberty International, Teterboro and Philadelphia airports, causing widespread delays and cancellations for thousands of passengers on the East Coast.
Dozens of planes were idled for hours on runways across the region as the FAA scrambled to repair the problem plaguing Philadelphia’s Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility that houses both a radar approach control room and an air traffic control tower.
Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford said a major circuit exploded at that facility and when they tried to get the backup system up and running, they discovered the backup line had been cut at a construction site in New Jersey.
“That fiber break will probably take 13 hours to repair,” Bedford warned. «They told me it’s huge. In the meantime, we already have the new circuit ready to install.»
Bedford said the circuit could be replaced by Monday afternoon.
«An Amtrak construction crew accidentally cut a fiber line in New Jersey, causing a telecommunications outage and forcing the FAA to suspend flights in the Northeast,» Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X shortly before 3 p.m.
«This incident underscores the need for additional funding to modernize aging infrastructure and prevent disruptions like this in the future,» Duffy wrote.
Initially, the FAA ordered ground stops at Newark Liberty International, Teterboro and Philadelphia airports.
Ground stops were later expanded to LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International Airports in New York City, causing delays on hundreds of flights as many foreign leaders traveled to attend the United Nations General Assembly.
Duffy wrote that flights were resuming at Philadelphia and LaGuardia, but not at the other affected airports.
The stop in Newark began around 10 a.m. after stoppages in Teterboro and Philadelphia went into effect.
The result was departure delays of up to 150 minutes from Newark and Philadelphia, according to the FAA website.
ET, 368 flights were canceled at Newark Airport and 140 flights were canceled at Philadelphia, according to data from Flightaware.com. Hundreds of additional flights were delayed at both airports.
One pilot appeared to be unaware of what was causing the delays, according to audio obtained by NBC News from ATC.com.
«What’s with the ungodly takeoff lines?» a pilot asked the air traffic control tower in Philadelphia at 11:45 a.m., according to audio from ATC.com.
“Equipment problems,” a controller responded.
“Is this expected to continue?” the pilot asked.
“No idea,” the controller said.
This is one of the busiest air corridors in the country, and last year an equipment malfunction left a dozen planes flying blind for 90 seconds in the crowded skies of New Jersey.
Duffy insisted at the time that there was never any danger of the planes colliding during that brief interruption in communications.
