Fiber cable cut in New Jersey halts flights at major US airports

Construction crews working along an Amtrak rail line in New Jersey accidentally cut a fiber-optic cable, disrupting telecommunications links used by air traffic control and halting flights across the northeastern United States, according to the US transportation secretary.

Sean Duffy said on X that the severed line, owned by Verizon, caused the outage and led the Federal Aviation Administration to pause traffic in the region. Verizon confirmed to CNN that it runs a fiber cable along an Amtrak right-of-way in New Jersey and that workers in the area had exposed and cut it. Repairs were under way, the company said.

Duffy said operations at LaGuardia and Philadelphia had resumed, while flights bound for Newark, New York JFK and Teterboro remained suspended. The FAA issued ground stops for affected airports, which CNN attributed to problems at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control facility.

The BBC listed the affected airports as Boston Logan, Newark, New York JFK, LaGuardia, Philadelphia and Teterboro, with ground stops at Newark and Teterboro and ground delays at the others. The disruption occurred as travellers were arriving for the United Nations General Assembly.