Thousands of US flights snarled due to FAA telecom problem

A failed telecommunications circuit and a severed fiber-optic cable snarled thousands of flights across the US on Monday and forced a halt to incoming flights at major airports in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. The flights were halted on the day that 130 world leaders and dozens of ministers were arriving in New York for the annual high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. The Federal Aviation Administration halted incoming traffic on Monday at busy US East Coast airports and at one point stopped incoming flights at all three major New York-area airports as well as Philadelphia and Boston and two smaller airports in the New York area. FlightAware, a flight-tracking website, said more than 5,600 US flights were delayed or canceled, including 1,200 flights at the three New York-area airports. The issue also forced the diversion of more than 100 flights to other airports.

The incident demonstrated the fragility of the aging US air traffic control system, which Congress awarded $12. 5 billion for upgrades last year. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said 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. He said flights were resuming at New York LaGuardia but remained paused at Newark and New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport. All arriving flights were again halted in Philadelphia after a ground stop was briefly lifted. Reagan Washington National Airport also halted flights for more than an hour because of volume issues. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said a replacement circuit had failed at Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control, which was the primary communications for the center. A ground stop at Boston, which stopped accepting flights because…