Flights across the New York area and the Northeast were disrupted on Sunday after an FAA communications failure tied to the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control facility affected traffic at JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Teterboro and Philadelphia International Airport. Ground stops and arrival restrictions were imposed as controllers lost reliable radar and radio links, triggering delays, diversions and cancellations across one of the busiest U.S. air corridors.
More than 90 flights were diverted soon after communications were lost, with Newark hit particularly hard and both JFK and LaGuardia later placed under delay programmes. The outage originated in a failed primary communications circuit and a severed backup fibre line, leaving controllers with limited capacity to manage traffic safely. By Monday evening, repairs were complete or under way and service was resuming, although airlines were still clearing a substantial backlog.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy were among the officials involved as the disruption unfolded. The incident followed damage to Verizon’s fibre network, with construction workers believed to have cut the backup line, underscoring the vulnerability of air traffic infrastructure in a corridor that handles heavy business and international travel.