Flights were halted at major airports across the Northeast after a communications failure at the Philadelphia-area air traffic control facility disrupted critical frequencies and exposed a break in a fiber-optic cable.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Flights at several of the Northeast’s busiest airports were temporarily grounded Monday after an equipment failure at the Federal Aviation Administration’s Philadelphia-area air traffic control facility disrupted communications used to manage aircraft.
The problems eventually affected John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Westchester County Airport in New York in addition to Newark Liberty International Airport, Teterboro Airport and Philadelphia International Airport, according to FAA information.
The expanding ground stops followed an earlier FAA announcement concerning problems at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control facility, commonly known as TRACON.
“The FAA is pausing flights into Philadelphia International, Teterboro and Newark Liberty International airports due to issues with some frequencies at Philadelphia TRACON,” the agency said in a statement earlier Monday.
The disruption subsequently spread to JFK, LaGuardia and Westchester County Airport, where the FAA also imposed ground stops because of the equipment outage.
FAA Administrator Brian Bedford said the Philadelphia TRACON initially lost its primary communications circuit.
Controllers attempted to move operations to backup systems, but the transition revealed a separate problem involving a damaged fiber-optic cable, according to Bedford.
The outage affected frequencies relied upon by controllers responsible for safely sequencing and directing aircraft through the heavily traveled airspace surrounding Philadelphia, northern New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area.
Bedford said officials hoped to restore TRACON operations at approximately 1:30 p.m. Eastern time if installation of a new circuit was successful.
Repairing the damaged fiber-optic cable itself was expected to require considerably longer. Bedford estimated that work on the cable could take about 13 hours.
The FAA’s use of ground stops prevented additional aircraft from departing for affected airports while the agency worked to restore reliable communications.
Ground stops are generally imposed when air traffic controllers cannot safely handle the normal volume of arriving aircraft because of weather, equipment failures, staffing problems or other operational restrictions. Aircraft already on the ground can be held at their departure airports until traffic-management officials determine that arrivals can resume.
Monday’s outage was especially disruptive because of the concentration of major airports in the affected region.
Newark, JFK, LaGuardia and Philadelphia handle large volumes of domestic and international passenger traffic, while Teterboro is a major business-aviation airport and Westchester serves commercial and private flights north of New York City.
The initial failure at Philadelphia TRACON therefore produced effects well beyond Philadelphia itself as the FAA restricted traffic moving through interconnected Northeast airspace.
Officials were working on two separate restoration efforts: bringing the air traffic control facility back online through a replacement circuit and repairing the underlying fiber-optic cable break.
Bedford said the replacement circuit could allow the facility to resume operations before the more time-consuming fiber repair was finished.
The FAA had not indicated in the information provided how long individual ground stops would remain in effect once communications were restored, leaving airlines and passengers dependent on continuing traffic-control updates as technicians worked on the outage.
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