Story perspectives

Dual telecom failure grounds thousands of Northeast flights

By Drooid · Sep 23, 2026, 11:37 PM UTC · How we work

Summary

Sean Duffy Requests $30B

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a dual telecom failure grounded thousands of flights across the Northeast on Monday.
A circuit failure at Philadelphia's control facility and a severed fiber-optic cable near New Brunswick cut communications and backup.
More than 200 flights were canceled at Philadelphia International, with delays at LaGuardia and Kennedy airports.
Duffy requested an extra $30 billion for the FAA overhaul after Congress approved $12.5 billion last year.

Summary

United Halts Newark

United Airlines halted many Newark departures and offered a free rebooking waiver through Sept. 23.
American Airlines provided a temporary travel waiver for passengers with tickets booked on or before Sept. 20.
FAA spokesperson Cassandra Nolan said flights were paused into Philadelphia, Newark, and Teterboro because of frequency issues.
Flight tracking app Flighty recorded 163 inbound and 173 outbound cancellations at Newark during the outage.

History

Historical Context

On Jan 5 1999 a faulty FAA computer forced a nationwide ground stop, delaying about 1,000 flights and costing roughly $200 million. The same NOTAM system failed again on Jan 11 2023, halting more than 10,000 flights—the first nationwide stop since 9/11—after a maintenance error replaced a database file. In response, the FAA introduced new maintenance procedures for the NOTAM system to reduce future outages.

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Sean Duffy Requests $30B

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a dual telecom failure grounded thousands of flights across the Northeast on Monday.
A circuit failure at Philadelphia's control facility and a severed fiber-optic cable near New Brunswick cut communications and backup.
More than 200 flights were canceled at Philadelphia International, with delays at LaGuardia and Kennedy airports.
Duffy requested an extra $30 billion for the FAA overhaul after Congress approved $12.5 billion last year.

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