Flights halted out of Newark and Philadelphia after air traffic equipment failure – NBC News

Flights halted out of Newark and Philadelphia after air traffic equipment failure  NBC News

A major circuit blew at the Philadelphia facility that controls air traffic to Newark Liberty International, Teterboro and Philadelphia airports Monday — causing widespread delays and cancellations to thousands of flyers on the East Coast. Dozens of planes were left idling for hours on runways across the region while the FAA scrambled to repair the issue affecting Philadelphia’s Terminal Radar Approach Control, or TRACON, facility that houses both a radar approach control room and an air traffic control tower. Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford said a major circuit blew at that facility and when they tried to get the backup system up and running, they discovered the backup line had been cut at a New Jersey construction site.

“That fiber break is probably 13 hours to repair,” Bedford warned. “It’s massive, I’m told. Meanwhile, we’ve got the new circuit ready to install now.” Bedford said the circuit could be replaced as early as Monday afternoon. “An Amtrak construction crew accidentally cut into a fiber line in New Jersey which caused a telecom outage and forced FAA to pause flights in the Northeast,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a posting on X shortly before 3 p.m. “This incident underscores the need for additional funding to modernize aging infrastructure and prevent disruptions like this in the future,” Duffy wrote. Initially, the