By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, Sept 21 (Reuters) – The Federal Aviation Administration halted flights at busy East Coast airports in New York, Philadelphia and Boston on Monday, saying a fiber cable was accidentally cut at a construction site in New Jersey.
Ground stops were issued for John F. Kennedy Airport and LaGuardia airports, as well as an airport in Teterboro, New Jersey, as 130 world leaders and dozens of ministers are arriving in New York for the annual high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told reporters a backup fiber line had been cut accidentally by a construction crew in New Jersey, prompting significant flight cuts.
He said a new circuit would be operational imminently. It was not clear when the ground stops at the New York-area airports would be lifted.
FlightAware, a flight-tracking site, said more than 600 flights at Newark and Philadelphia, or more than 20%, had been delayed at Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control. Newark is a major United Airlines hub, while Philadelphia is an American Airlines hub.
The issue has also forced the diversion of a number of flights to other airports. Flightradar24, a flight-tracking site, said flights were being delayed by an average of 112 minutes at Newark.
In May 2025, the facility that guides air traffic in and out of Newark airport suffered a series of significant communications outages.
The FAA said last year a telecommunications outage impacted communications and radar displays at Philadelphia TRACON.
Last year, Congress approved $12.5 billion to address the aging air traffic control system, and boost controller hiring following decades of complaints over airport congestion and flight delays and a series of technology issues in recent years.
(Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by Franklin Paul, Aurora Ellis and David Gregorio)
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