One Cut Cable Grounded Newark, Philadelphia and JFK — and a Watchdog Says the FAA's Radios Are Wide Open

A New Jersey Transit crew severed a Verizon fiber line on Monday, halting flights at Newark, Teterboro, Philadelphia, LaGuardia and JFK — the same day a GAO report found the FAA's aircraft communications can be spoofed and jammed.

Hundreds of flights into and out of the New York area were canceled, delayed or diverted on Monday after a construction crew severed a fiber-optic cable in New Jersey — a routine accident that reached straight into the systems guiding the busiest airspace in the United States.

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a ground stop at about 10 a.m. for Newark Liberty International, Teterboro and Philadelphia International, saying radio frequencies at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility were affected. The stops were later widened to LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International, just as foreign leaders were arriving for the United Nations General Assembly. (The Guardian)

The cause was an accidental cut. New Jersey Transit said a crew working on a rail project between New Brunswick and North Brunswick "accidentally severed a fiber-optic cable" at 9:45 a.m. Verizon, whose line was damaged, blamed the transit agency's contractor; Amtrak said it was an NJT contractor. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said controllers reached for the backup feed and found that line broken too, describing the repair as "massive." Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the telecom lines were fixed and flights were resuming by early evening. (NBC News)

The cost was counted in aircraft. More than 600 flights in and out of Newark were canceled by 6 p.m. — over half the day's schedule — while more than 200 Philadelphia flights were canceled and more than 400 delayed, according to FlightAware. More than 100 inbound flights were diverted, including long-haul arrivals from Iceland, Egypt, Greece, Spain and France. United and American waived change fees for stranded travelers. (CNBC)

The outage landed on the same day as a Government Accountability Office report finding that the FAA has yet to finish risk assessments or update security documentation covering spoofing, jamming and other attacks on the radio spectrum — and has no real-time system to detect them, meaning it generally investigates only after incidents are reported. Two systems used to send text messages to aircraft predate modern cybersecurity standards and lack common protections such as encryption. (The Guardian)

Investigators warned that a hacker could send fraudulent messages, such as false cancellations of flight clearances, with the potential to disrupt airspace or create safety risks. The GAO issued nine recommendations, including a formal risk assessment of the reviewed systems and continuous monitoring for interference; the Department of Transportation agreed to all nine. Senator Ron Wyden called the FAA's failure to require secure communications "a major threat to US national security." The agency handles more than 44,000 flights a day and about 3 million passengers.

It is not Newark's first scare. In April 2025 an outage blanked controllers' screens for roughly 60 to 90 seconds, prompting the FAA to halt departures.

Sources: The Guardian | CNBC | NBC News