Amtrak work crews cut fiber optic cable, grounding flights across NYC

Evan Simko-Bednarski, New York Daily News on Sep 21, 2026

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NEW YORK — Air traffic into New York City’s major airports suffered heavy delays Monday after crews working on an Amtrak project severed a fiber optic cable linking two major air traffic control centers, a source briefed on the situation confirmed to the Daily News.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed in a social media post Monday afternoon that Amtrak workers “accidentally cut into a fiber line” in the Garden State Monday morning, knocking out communications between New York and New Jersey air traffic control.

“This incident underscores the need for additional funding to modernize aging infrastructure and prevent disruptions like this in the future,” the secretary wrote.

All flights into and out of the region were grounded for a time. As of Monday afternoon Newark International Airport, Kennedy International Airport and Teterboro Airport remained grounded. Flights had resumed with heavy delays at LaGuardia Airport and Philadelphia International Airport.

As previously reported by the News, flights taking off and landing at Newark and Teterboro are handled by the air traffic controllers at Philadelphia’s “terminal radar approach control” — or TRACON — who are responsible for the skies over North Jersey.

The radar information they use to guide those flights, however, is routed through New York TRACON — which handles takeoff and landing control for LaGuardia and Kennedy.

Previous issues with the old, copper-wire communication link between New York and Philly TRACONs knocked out flight operations in the nation’s largest metropolitan area twice last year.

The fiber-optic line — severed Monday by the railroad work crew — was installed by the feds last year as part of an effort to combat the communications chaos that contributed to a week-long meltdown at Newark last year.

It was not immediately clear what project the Amtrak crew was working on when it severed the communications line.

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