Hundreds of flights faced widespread delays and ground stops across the US Northeast on Monday, September 21, 2026, after a critical telecommunications cable was accidentally severed during construction work in New Jersey, knocking out an essential backup air traffic control network.
The disruption struck during the morning hours, forcing federal aviation officials to temporarily halt incoming flights at major hubs including Newark Liberty International Airport, Philadelphia International Airport, and Teterboro Airport. The cascading technical issues originated from a failed primary circuit at a Philadelphia air traffic control facility, which then exposed the severed backup fiber optic line running between New Brunswick and Newark.
Construction Accident and Damaged Infrastructure
Federal and transportation officials traced the root cause of the outage to a physical mishap on the ground. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated on X that workers from Amtrak, the national intercity passenger railroad operator, caused the telecom outage by cutting the line during construction work. However, an Amtrak spokesperson clarified in a statement, reported by US media, that the incident involved an NJ Transit contractor. New Jersey public transportation agency NJ Transit told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that its construction workers had accidentally severed the line and that markers had been wrongly placed at the digging site.
Telecommunications company Verizon, which owns the cable, also said it was not responsible. The severed cable was actually a backup network, and the error was only discovered after the primary circuit failed, according to the head of the FAA, Bryan Bedford. The severed line served as a crucial backup network for the Terminal Radar Approach Control system, which is used to guide planes during takeoff and landing, transport officials said. The failure caused major widespread delays on the East Coast as air traffic controllers lost key communication channels and radar displays.
Airports Impacted and Passenger Disruption
Flight tracking services registered hundreds of delays across the region, with Newark Liberty International Airport bearing the heaviest burden. Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey – one of the three major airports that services New York City – was the most heavily impacted by today’s air traffic control disruptions, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware. It reported that 267 departing flights were delayed today, while a further 257 flights destined for Newark were also delayed. John F Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport, both in New York, were also affected, as was Philadelphia International Airport.
Airlines reported that approximately 15 percent of flights at Newark and Philadelphia were delayed, with Flightradar24 noting that flights at Newark were being delayed by an average of 112 minutes. Passengers caught in the gridlock faced hours of tarmac waits and diversions. One passenger, Douglas Tewnion, said he boarded a flight to New York from Edinburgh and that his plane had been diverted to Boston, Massachusetts instead.
He told the BBC that, two hours after his flight was due into New York, he and the other passengers were still “sitting on the same plane, on the tarmac at Boston with no information”. Though “everyone is in good spirits”, Tewnion said “it’s just a pain” to see two more hours waiting added onto a lengthy flight.
Douglas Tewnion, Passenger, via BBC
Repair Timeline and Operational Recovery
By Monday afternoon, repair crews mobilized to splice the severed fiber. Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Brian Bedford detailed the massive engineering effort required to restore full capacity, noting that That fiber break is probably 13 hours to repair. It’s massive,
Bedford said, according to a video posted online by a CBS transportation reporter.
Hours later, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the cable had been repaired and airports would resume normal operations, though delays were still expected. Some airlines were also allowing passengers to change flights without paying fees.
Broader Vulnerabilities in US Air Traffic Control
The incident drew renewed scrutiny toward the technological resilience of American aviation infrastructure. The latest disruption occurred at the same FAA facility that was linked to major flight disruptions at Newark Liberty International Airport in May 2025, when the facility suffered a series of communications outages. The FAA also said last year that a telecommunications outage at the Philadelphia facility had affected communications and radar displays used by air traffic controllers.
Industry observers and lawmakers have repeatedly raised concerns regarding aging equipment across the national airspace system. Congress approved $12.5 billion last year to address the system’s ageing technology and increase the number of air traffic controllers, following years of complaints about congestion, flight delays and technical failures.