Synopsis

A Federal Aviation Administration equipment outage caused widespread flight disruptions across the Northeast. Major airports including JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark experienced significant delays and diversions. This outage stemmed from a circuit failure at a Philadelphia radar facility. A damaged fiber-optic backup system further compounded the operational issues. Airport operations gradually resumed after telecommunication lines were repaired.

AP

New York's John F Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport were among several airports affected by ground stops on Monday (local time) following an equipment outage at the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), disrupting flights across the Northeast.



According to flight-tracking service Flightradar24, JFK and LaGuardia were added to the list of airports where flights bound for the facilities were being held at their origin airports.



“New York airports JFK and La Guardia have now been added to the list of airports ground stopped (flights to those airports are held on the ground at their origin) due to the FAA equipment outage,” Flightradar24 said in a post on X.

The service said the airports affected included JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Teterboro and Philadelphia, along with Westchester County Airport.



In a latest update, it was reported that Arrivals had resumed at Newark airport while certain other flights continued to be diverted.



"Arrivals have just resumed at Newark. No commercial flights landed at EWR between 09:38 and 17:22 local time today," Flightradar24 posted.



Flightradar24 also reported significant disruption at Newark.



“Through 17:30 EDT, 107 diversions away from Newark (EWR) to 34 separate airports impacting 25 airlines. IAD (19) & JFK (12) took in the greatest number of flights. United (with its EWR hub) was most impacted with 70 diversions,” it said.



According to the New York Post, the disruption was linked to two equipment failures and affected more than half a dozen airports across the Northeast for much of Monday.



FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said a circuit failure at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control facility resulted in the loss of radio and radar equipment serving several airports, including JFK, LaGuardia and Newark.



The FAA said Philadelphia, Teterboro and Westchester County airports were also affected.



The outage began around 10 am and resulted in more than 1,000 flight delays or cancellations, according to the report, as New York prepared to host world leaders and ministers for the 81st United Nations General Assembly.



The disruption was compounded after officials discovered that a newly installed fibre-optic backup system in New Jersey had been damaged during construction work.



US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a fibre-optic line was cut during work near an Amtrak rail line, affecting Verizon communication lines.



By 6 pm, Duffy said the telecommunications lines had been repaired and airport operations were resuming, though residual delays were expected.



“The telecom lines have been repaired, and all airport operations in the Northeast are resuming,” Duffy said.



Bedford also criticised the existing infrastructure, saying the network design needed an overhaul to prevent similar failures.



“The network design is terrible. And if we don’t fix the network design, we’re going to continue having these failures,” he said.

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