US East Coast airports resume operations after construction cable cut disrupts hundreds of flights

On Monday afternoon, hundreds of flights across the US East Coast ground to a halt after construction workers accidentally severed a cable that feeds one of the most critical systems in American aviation. The damage rippled across four states—New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts—forcing ground stops and cascading delays at some of the nation's busiest airports just as the world was preparing for the arrival of dozens of international leaders at the UN General Assembly in Manhattan.

The cable that was cut belonged to Verizon and served as a backup network for the Terminal Radar Approach Control system, the infrastructure that guides aircraft during takeoff and landing. Workers from NJ Transit, a New Jersey public transportation contractor, severed the line while doing construction work at a digging site where markers had been incorrectly placed. The error might have gone unnoticed longer, but the real damage became apparent only after the primary circuit failed, according to Bryan Bedford, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration. At that point, the full scope of the problem became clear: the backup was gone, and air traffic control was compromised.

Newark Liberty International Airport bore the brunt of the disruption. The facility, one of three major hubs serving the New York City area, saw 267 departing flights delayed and another 257 inbound flights held up. John F Kennedy International and LaGuardia in New York, along with Philadelphia International Airport, were also affected. The incident created a domino effect across the region's airspace, with planes diverted to alternate airports and passengers left stranded in uncertainty. One traveler, Douglas Tewnion, boarded a flight from Edinburgh bound for New York only to find his aircraft rerouted to Boston. He and his fellow passengers sat on the tarmac for two additional hours with minimal information, adding frustration to an already lengthy journey.

Responsibility for the accident became a matter of finger-pointing among the agencies involved. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy initially attributed the damage to Amtrak workers conducting construction, posting on social media that the incident had caused a telecom outage forcing the FAA to ground flights. An Amtrak spokesperson quickly countered, stating that the work had actually been performed by a NJ Transit contractor. Verizon, the telecommunications company that owned the severed cable, also distanced itself from responsibility. NJ Transit acknowledged to CBS News that its construction workers had caused the damage and that the site markers had been placed incorrectly.

Within hours, the cable was repaired. Sean Duffy announced that operations would resume to normal, though delays were expected to linger as the system worked through the backlog. The timing of the outage—occurring just before the UN General Assembly was set to bring world leaders into New York-area airports—added another layer of concern to an already tense situation. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham managed to board his flight before the disruptions began and arrived as scheduled. For the hundreds of other passengers caught in the delays, the incident served as a stark reminder of how dependent modern air travel is on infrastructure that can fail in an instant, and how a single severed cable in the wrong place can paralyze an entire region's skies.