hundreds of flights were grounded or delayed across several major United States airports on Monday following an accidental damage incident involving a critical communications cable. The disruption affected airports in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts after construction workers severed a line essential for air traffic control operations.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed that the damaged cable was repaired by Monday evening, stating that while airports would resume normal operations, delays were still expected. The incident occurred just one day before the United Nations General Assembly is set to convene in New York City, an event drawing numerous world leaders to the region.
Among those affected was UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who successfully boarded his flight prior to the onset of delays and was anticipated to arrive in New York on schedule. In contrast, many other travelers faced significant disruptions. Douglas Tewnion, a passenger traveling from Edinburgh to New York, reported that his flight was diverted to Boston, where he and other passengers remained seated on the aircraft on the tarmac for two hours without updates.
Transport officials indicated that the severed cable impacted the Terminal Radar Approach Control system, which is utilized to guide aircraft during takeoff and landing sequences. Although Duffy initially attributed the damage to Amtrak workers conducting construction, NJ Transit later clarified that its own crew members had accidentally cut the line due to incorrectly placed markers at the excavation site.
Bryan Bedford, head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), revealed that the damaged infrastructure was actually a backup network. The error went undetected until the primary circuit failed, triggering the grounding of flights. Verizon, the telecommunications company that owns the cable, issued a statement asserting that it bore no responsibility for the incident.
According to flight-tracking data from FlightAware, Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey experienced the most severe impact, with 267 departing and 257 arriving flights delayed. John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport in New York, and Philadelphia International Airport also reported significant operational disruptions.
This is terrifying. A single cable severing grounded hundreds of flights. We need redundancy, not just another single point of failure.
Wait, so the construction crew used wrong markers and cut a backup line? How do you even mess that up?
Right before the UN summit? Talk about bad timing. I hope the world leaders weren’t stuck on tarmacs like that poor guy from Edinburgh.
How was this not caught sooner? If the primary failed and only then the backup went down, our safety nets are seriously flawed.