FAA outage grounds East Coast flights
The gist
FAA grounded flights at major East Coast airports after a fiber cable was cut.
The outage disrupted thousands and renewed focus on aging air traffic control infrastructure.
How it unfolded
- Sep 21, 2026FAA grounded flights into and out of major East Coast airports because of an equipment outage, issuing ground stops at JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Boston Logan, Philadelphia International and Teterboro.
- Sep 21, 2026FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the agency lost the primary circuit at Philadelphia TRACON and that a backup fiber line had been accidentally cut by a construction crew in New Jersey.
- Sep 21, 2026Bedford said the cut damaged a 600-foot section of line between New Brunswick and Newark, New Jersey, and could take up to 13 hours to repair; he said the circuit replacement did not work.