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Newark airport ground stop ordered over equipment issues
NBC New York • • general
Key Points:
- The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued ground stops at major tri-state airports including Newark, Teterboro, Philadelphia International, JFK, and LaGuardia due to a failed Verizon circuit connecting these hubs, causing widespread flight delays starting around 10 a.m. Monday.
- The outage was caused by a break in a backup fiber cable between Newark and New Brunswick, which will take approximately 13 hours to repair, according to FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford.
- Flights at Newark experienced significant disruptions with dozens of jets lined up on runways before returning to gates, and ground stop orders remained active for several hours with estimated service restoration pushed to mid-afternoon.
- LaGuardia resumed operations within about an hour but still faced average delays of 44 minutes, while JFK and other airports had ground stops or delays extended into the afternoon.
- Despite the chaos, air traffic controllers shared lighthearted jokes over the radio to ease tension among staff during the prolonged outage.
