Flights are beginning to take off again after the FAA ordered hours-long ground stops at some of the largest airports in the United States due to an air traffic control equipment outage on the East Coast.
According to Reuters, the widespread incident began late Monday morning when a circuit blew at the Philadelphia TRACON facility, which handles air traffic for Philadelphia and the New Jersey area.
The outage initially led to ground stops at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), and New Jersey’s private Teterboro airport.
After high-profile equipment outages in the spring of 2025, theTRACON facility received a backup system that would kick on in the event of an equipment failure.
However, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said that the backup fiber line was found to be accidentally cut by a construction crew in New Jersey and unable to provide assistance during Monday’s incident, according to NBC News.
Throughout Monday afternoon, the ground stops expanded to major Northeast hubs like New York LaGuardia (LGA), New York JFK, and Boston Logan International (BOS).
More than 5,600 flights in the U.S. were delayed or canceled, according to FlightAware data. That includes about 1,200 flights in the New York area alone.
By early Monday evening, flights had resumed at JFK, Philadelphia, and Boston. However ground stops remained in place at both LaGuardia and Newark airports. Bedford said the backup line would take at least 13 hours to repair, NBC reported.
Travelers should continue to check with their airlines for the latest scheduling information. According to Flight Aware, there are
179 total cancellations within, into, or out of the U.S. on Tuesday, as of 7:50 a.m. ET,
with another 622 flights delayed.
Newark Airport has been in the spotlight for repeated equipment outages, which began to make headlines in 2025.
Among the incidents was an episode in which air traffic controllers lost contact with at least one arriving plane, causing staff at the Philadelphia TRACON to take mental health leave from their jobs due to stress.
The combination of low staffing and equipment issues caused travel chaos at Newark for several weeks in the summer of 2025.
Safety concerns over archaic equipment also mobilized officials to advocate for a total overhaul of the nation’s air traffic control system.
Congress has allotted $12.5 billion to the FAA for that major project, however federal officials say that amount still isn’t enough to complete the job safely.
“This incident underscores the need for additional funding to modernize aging infrastructure and prevent disruptions like this in the future,” Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy wrote in a post on X.
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