It is over. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced around 6 p.m. ET Monday that the severed telecom lines had been repaired, and the FAA lifted the ground stops at all five airports. The FAA’s operations status feed showed no equipment-outage programs anywhere in the system on Tuesday afternoon. What is left is the recovery bill.
- Monday’s final toll: more than 1,000 cancellations and over 6,000 delays nationwide.
- Newark recorded more cancellations than any other airport in the world Monday — over 300 departures scrubbed, more than half its departure schedule.
- By 7:10 a.m. ET Tuesday, Newark was down to about 60 cancellations, roughly 5% of the day’s schedule, from more than 600 the day before.
- United Airlines, which hubs at Newark, absorbed most of the residual cancellations into Tuesday.
- Crews restored service on a replacement circuit rather than wait out the 13-hour splice Bedford had described.
- Duffy again tied the failure to aging infrastructure, arguing it shows why air traffic control modernization needs more funding.
1 earlier update
The cause is no longer in question. An aging Verizon circuit serving Philadelphia TRACON failed Monday morning, and when controllers reached for the backup line they found it had already been severed by a construction crew in New Jersey. Newark and Teterboro were still under a ground stop at 5 p.m. ET, more than seven hours after the first pause, and responsibility for the cut cable is now openly disputed.
- A crew working on NJ Transit’s Delco Lead project between New Brunswick and North Brunswick cut the fiber at roughly 9:45 a.m., about 15 minutes before the first ground stop.
- Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed “an Amtrak construction crew.” Amtrak says the cut happened on NJ Transit property; NJ Transit says its crew was working about 10 feet from the utility markings and is checking who placed them.
- Verizon said its “facilities were fully functional up to that point” and that it “bears no responsibility for this incident.”
- Ground stops at JFK and LaGuardia were lifted within about two hours and replaced with ground delay programs; LaGuardia was placed back under a ground stop later in the afternoon.
- Rather than splice a break FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford estimated at 13 hours, the FAA moved to install a replacement circuit.
- NBC News counted about 600 cancellations at Newark and 189 at Philadelphia as of 5 p.m. ET.
- A failed Verizon circuit at Philadelphia TRACON, plus a backup fiber line already cut by a construction crew, halted flights at five airports on Monday.
- All ground stops were lifted by about 6 p.m. ET Monday after crews restored service on a replacement circuit.
- Monday cost more than 1,000 cancellations and 6,000 delays nationwide; Newark was down to roughly 5% of its schedule cancelled by Tuesday.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop Monday at Newark Liberty International Airport, Philadelphia International Airport and Teterboro Airport after an equipment outage disrupted air traffic control communications in the region.
Controllers reported radio problems at Philadelphia TRACON, which directs aircraft approaching and departing the three airports. The outage immediately affected departures most sharply.
Outbound delays reached 46 to 60 minutes and were “and increasing,” the agency said. Arrivals faced delays of 15 minutes or less in the earlier advisories, while Newark departures were about 45 minutes late.
The problem involved two communications paths. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the primary circuit failed, then the backup line broke as well.
“That fiber break is probably 13 hours to repair. It's massive, I'm told,”
Bedford said the break occurred somewhere between New Brunswick and Newark. The agency was installing a new circuit.
An FAA spokesperson described the operational response this way:
“The FAA is pausing flights into Philadelphia International, Teterboro and Newark Liberty International airports due to issues with some frequencies at Philadelphia TRACON.”
The timing changed repeatedly through the day. Officials initially expected the pause to end by 11:15 a.m., while Philadelphia’s first hold notice ran until 11:45 a.m. Newark’s earliest posted end time was 1:45 p.m., with a 30% to 60% chance of an extension.
Later updates pushed Newark’s stop to at least 2:45 p.m. The airport advised passengers to check directly with their airlines.
Delays worsened as the airport holds continued
| Airport | Reported impact | Timing or additional detail |
|---|---|---|
| Newark Liberty International Airport | Departures delayed 45 to 105 minutes in successive updates | Average delay reached 150 minutes at 12:07 p.m. |
| Philadelphia International Airport | Average departure delay of 60 minutes and rising | The airport remained part of the initial pause |
| Teterboro Airport | Delays exceeding 255 minutes in one update | Flights were paused because of the frequency problems |
The figures shifted as controllers managed the reduced communications capacity. Newark’s average departure delay climbed well beyond the roughly 45-minute estimate cited in an earlier advisory.
By midday, the outage had produced dozens of delays, multiple cancellations and diversions. One update counted roughly 250 delayed Newark flights and about 67 inbound flights diverted away from the airport.
Flight-tracking data later showed about 92 Newark cancellations and nearly 70 diversions around 1 p.m. Some diverted aircraft had been returning internationally from Iceland, Greece, Spain and France.
The outage sent aircraft away from Newark
The disruption strained a major Northeast air corridor. Newark is a major United Airlines hub, while Philadelphia is a hub for American Airlines, putting connecting passengers and airline operations under pressure at both airports.
The two airports also handled different layers of the same problem. Philadelphia TRACON, a Terminal Radar Approach Control facility, uses radar and radio communications to manage aircraft near the airports rather than flights across the entire country.
Officials later confirmed that account and filled it in: the severed cable was a Verizon fiber line running beside an Amtrak right-of-way, cut at a New Jersey construction site before the primary circuit ever failed. Bedford’s estimate of roughly 13 hours to repair the break indicated that the operational effects could outlast the initial airport holds — which is what happened.
The airport’s public message remained direct:
The disruption later reached two New York airports
Later updates extended the effects to JFK and LaGuardia, where ground stops were also issued. The additional holds widened the disruption beyond the three airports named in the first FAA notice.
Another update said more than 600 flights at Newark and Philadelphia had been delayed, representing more than 20% of the combined schedules. The totals included flights already delayed before later airport restrictions took effect.
Newark’s repeated extensions left passengers facing changing departure estimates rather than one fixed reopening time. The agency’s earlier 30% to 60% extension probability underscored that uncertainty.
The outage also created pressure on inbound aircraft. Diversions involving international flights returning from Europe added extra coordination for passengers, crews and airlines, while shorter arrival delays had been reported in the first advisories.
Airlines remained the source of individual booking updates as the situation developed. Passengers scheduled through Newark, Philadelphia, Teterboro, JFK or LaGuardia should check their carrier’s status before traveling, particularly after the Newark stop moved to at least 2:45 p.m.
A failed circuit met a backup line that was already cut
The outage came down to two failures that landed on the same morning. Philadelphia TRACON runs its communications over an older Verizon circuit, and that primary circuit blew Monday morning. That alone would have been survivable: the facility has a backup fiber path, and controllers moved to it.
The backup was already gone. A construction crew working on NJ Transit’s Delco Lead project, between New Brunswick and North Brunswick, had severed the fiber-optic cable at about 9:45 a.m. — roughly 15 minutes before the FAA issued the first ground stop. The damaged stretch runs about 600 feet, alongside an Amtrak rail line.
Bedford put the splice at about 13 hours. Rather than wait out that repair, the FAA moved to install a replacement circuit instead, which is why the airport holds were extended in short increments through the afternoon rather than lifted on a single announced time.
Four parties, four versions of who cut the cable
Responsibility for the cut became contested within hours, and the accounts do not line up.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X that an Amtrak crew was at fault:
“An Amtrak construction crew accidentally cut into a fiber line in New Jersey which caused a telecom outage and forced FAA to pause flights in the Northeast.”
Verizon, which owns the line, also pointed at Amtrak contractors and drew a firm boundary around its own role:
“Verizon’s facilities were fully functional up to that point. Verizon bears no responsibility for this incident.”
Amtrak, for its part, said the cut happened on NJ Transit property. NJ Transit said its crew was working roughly 10 feet away from the utility markings at the site, and that it is still determining whether Verizon or the contractor placed those markings in the first place.
Duffy used the outage to argue for money, saying the incident underscores the need for additional funding to modernize aging air traffic infrastructure. The Philadelphia facility is the same one that handles Newark approach control and has been at the center of repeated Newark disruptions over the past two years.
Where each airport stood at the peak, 5 p.m. ET Monday
The FAA’s own operations status feed, updated at 5:01 p.m. ET Monday, captured the disruption at its worst, about an hour before it was resolved. Newark and Teterboro were still stopped, and LaGuardia — which had been released earlier in the afternoon — was back under a fresh ground stop. The table below is that snapshot, not the current state.
| Airport | Status at 5:01 p.m. ET | Delay |
|---|---|---|
| Newark Liberty (EWR) | Ground stop, scheduled to run to 5:45 p.m. ET | Equipment outage |
| Teterboro (TEB) | Ground stop, scheduled to run to 5:45 p.m. ET | Departure delays of 7 hours or more, increasing |
| LaGuardia (LGA) | Ground stop reissued, scheduled to run to 6:15 p.m. ET | Arrivals averaging 44 minutes, up to 2 hr 32 min |
| Philadelphia (PHL) | Ground delay program | Arrivals averaging 3 hr 32 min, up to 10 hr 10 min |
| JFK | Ground delay program | Arrivals averaging 1 hr 12 min, up to 3 hr 31 min |
| Westchester County (HPN) | Ground delay program | Arrivals averaging 1 hr 19 min, up to 5 hr 27 min |
Philadelphia absorbed the worst of the arrival backlog even after its own ground stop was lifted, with a maximum assigned delay above 10 hours. Teterboro, the smallest of the five, ended the afternoon with departure delays past seven hours and still climbing.
How many flights were hit
The counts moved all day, so the figure depends on when it was taken. By mid-afternoon, tracking data showed more than 1,200 flights into or out of Newark, Philadelphia and Teterboro delayed or cancelled, with about 280 Newark cancellations among roughly 400 nationwide.
The final accounting is larger than any of the running counts. Monday ended with more than 1,000 flights cancelled and over 6,000 delayed across the United States. Newark recorded more cancellations than any other airport in the world that day: more than 300 departures scrapped, over half the airport’s scheduled departures. Philadelphia, JFK, LaGuardia and Teterboro absorbed the rest.
The ground stops lifted Monday evening
The disruption broke around 6 p.m. ET Monday, roughly eight hours after the first pause. Duffy announced that the severed telecom lines had been repaired and that operations across the Northeast were resuming, and the FAA lifted the ground stops at Newark, JFK, Teterboro, LaGuardia and Philadelphia.
Crews never did splice the 600-foot break Bedford had put at 13 hours of work. They restored service on a replacement circuit instead, which is why the fix landed hours earlier than his original estimate implied. Radar and radio frequencies came back at Philadelphia TRACON, and the facility resumed normal approach control for both Newark and Philadelphia.
Duffy returned to the same argument he had made all afternoon, saying the episode shows why aging aviation infrastructure needs more funding. The circuit that failed was an older Verizon line, and Philadelphia TRACON is the same facility that has been at the centre of repeated Newark breakdowns over the past two years.
Tuesday: a normal airport again, with a hangover
The equipment problem was gone by Tuesday. The FAA’s status feed showed no equipment-outage ground stops or ground delay programs anywhere in the national airspace system on Tuesday afternoon — the only active programs were runway construction at Boston and low cloud at San Francisco, neither connected to the fiber cut.
What lingered was the schedule damage. As of 7:10 a.m. ET Tuesday, about 60 flights in and out of Newark were cancelled, roughly 5% of the day’s schedule, down from more than 600 the day before. United Airlines, which runs Newark as a hub, carried most of those cancellations as it repositioned aircraft and crews that had ended Monday in the wrong cities.
That pattern is the normal shape of recovery from a long ground stop. The hardware is fixed within hours; the airline schedule takes another day or two, because crews run into duty-time limits and aircraft have to be flown back into position before they can operate their next scheduled rotation.
