Amtrak crew cuts telecom fiber, prompting widespread FAA flight disruptions.
Hundreds of flights at airports across the US East Coast were canceled or delayed Monday after a telecommunications line was damaged in a construction mishap, US officials said.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X that flights were resuming at LaGuardia and Philadelphia airports around 1900 GMT, while flights into Newark and JFK remained paused.
“An Amtrak construction crew accidentally damaged a fiber-optic line in New Jersey, triggering a telecommunications outage that forced the FAA to pause flights across the Northeast,” Duffy said.
Amtrak, the US passenger rail operator, was linked to the incident.
Around 1900 GMT, Newark Airport, a major hub serving the New York City area, had 168 flight cancellations and 97 delays, while Philadelphia recorded 63 cancellations and 189 delays, according to FlightAware.
Monday’s airport disruption was caused by two separate issues, according to Federal Aviation Administration chief Bryan Bedford.
After detecting an outage on the primary telecommunications line, officials discovered that the backup fiber line had also been damaged, Bedford said during a briefing with reporters on new air traffic technologies.
He described the damage to the backup line as “massive,” attributing it to a construction error.
Bedford said he expected the primary system to be restored by early afternoon, while repairs to the backup line were expected to take about 13 hours.
