A construction-related fiber-optic cable cut in New Jersey caused an eight-hour suspension of arriving flights at major Northeast airports on Sept. 21, disrupting about 7,000 flights across the United States, including 1,400 at the three main New York-area airports. The outage began around 9:45 a.m. after a telecommunications line near New Brunswick was severed, disrupting communications at the Federal Aviation Administration's Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control. The FAA paused arrivals at John F. Kennedy International, LaGuardia, Newark Liberty International, Philadelphia International and Boston Logan airports, as well as two smaller New York-area facilities, while more than 100 flights were diverted. Newark, a major United Airlines Holdings Inc. hub, canceled more than half its flights, and United issued a travel waiver for affected passengers. Newark and LaGuardia later resumed arrivals, Philadelphia lifted a second ground stop and Boston cleared a volume-related stop. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy initially blamed an Amtrak construction crew, but Amtrak denied responsibility; New Jersey Transit later said its crew had been digging near utility markings and was still determining who made them. The incident renewed scrutiny of aging U.S. air-traffic-control infrastructure. Congress approved $12.5 billion in 2025 for modernization and controller hiring, while Duffy said another $17.5 billion would be needed to complete the work. The Philadelphia facility also suffered significant communications outages in May 2025.