A Severed Fiber Cable Grounded 7,000 US Flights for Eight Hours

A construction crew in New Jersey severed a fiber-optic cable carrying voice and data communications for the FAA's Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control facility on September 21, and the incident escalated into a major outage because a backup line meant to provide redundancy had also been damaged, leaving controllers unable to safely communicate with aircraft approaching the region. The resulting roughly eight-hour outage, which began around 9:45am local time and saw arrivals gradually resume from around 5:30pm, disrupted approximately 7,000 flights across six East Coast airports: JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Philadelphia, Boston Logan and Reagan Washington National. Newark was hit hardest, with more than half its schedule for the day cancelled outright, and more than 100 flights nationwide were diverted to alternate airports as controllers worked to manage arrivals without the normal communications infrastructure. United Airlines and American Airlines, both of which operate substantial hub or focus-city operations among the affected airports, bore the brunt of the disrupted schedules. Because the underlying cause was an external communications failure rather than anything within an airline's control, compensation for affected passengers is generally unlikely, though airlines remained obligated to provide rerouting, refunds, meals, and overnight accommodation where an affected passenger's journey required an unplanned stay.