USA: Flight stops at airports in New York and on the East Coast

Planes turn around over the Atlantic

Authorities are issuing flight stops at several US airports

An equipment failure paralyzes several major US airports. There are already delays and there is no end in sight to the disruption.

Hundreds of flights on the US East Coast were canceled on Monday because workers accidentally cut a cable during construction work. Construction workers for the Amtrak railway company interrupted a fiber optic line, which led to a failure of telecommunications connections, said Transport Minister Sean Duffy in the online service X. The incident forced the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to… Air traffic to interrupt.

According to the FlightAware platform, which allows flights to be tracked in real time, New York Airport Newark canceled 168 flights and delayed 97 flights. There were 63 flight cancellations and 189 delays at Philadelphia Airport.

Duffy further explained that around 9 p.m. (CEST), flight operations resumed at LaGuardia and Philadelphia airports, while flights to Newark and JFK airports initially remained suspended.

Bryan Bedford of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that the fiber optic cable that was supposed to provide security had been cut between Newark and New Brunswick. This had an impact on important radar and radio systems. The main system could probably be restored soon.

First of all, there was a ban on flights at Newark Airport in the morning new York became known. “Departures to Newark International are suspended due to an equipment failure,” the FAA said on its website. Several flights from Europe turned around again on the way over or towards the Atlantic.

The American news channel NBC News reported that the travel plans of thousands of passengers were affected.

There is no information from the FAA yet as to how long the outage could last at other airports. The impact on the UN General Assembly in New York this week, at which numerous states will be represented, is unclear.