Flight issues and delays continued to plague the New York area early Tuesday after a fiber optic cable was severed in New Jersey on Monday morning, causing a telecom outage and throwing local airports into chaos.
According to the website Flightaware.com, as of 9 a.m., Newark Airport continued to bear the brunt of the travel misery, with 58 flights canceled and 53 flights delayed. JFK Airport had 7 cancellations and 46 delays, while LaGuardia Airport had 4 cancellations and 16 delays. It was not clear how many of them were still connected to Monday’s incident.
United States Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was quick to blame an Amtrak construction crew for the mishap that forced the Federal Aviation Administration to pause all flights in the northeast.
But early Tuesday, NJ Transit said it was their construction crew that accidentally severed the fiber-optic cable while working on the Delco Lead project between New Brunswick and North Brunswick. The company said the crew had been operating 10 feet away from utility markings at the site, and said they were investigating whether Verizon or another contractor mis-marked the utilities — leading them to believe they were working in a cable-free zone. NJ Transit said the affected cable was a back-up to the primary circuit system, which had failed earlier.
As of Tuesday morning, more than half of the 56 affected fiber cables had been tested and were coming back online, according to NJ Transit. They added their staff was on site to determine the status of the repairs.
Verizon and Amtrak did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a post on X Monday evening, Duffy urged travelers to check with their airline for residual delays and cancellations. Flights into Philadelphia International Airport and Teterboro Airport were also paused on Monday but had resumed on Tuesday with some cancellations and delays at each.
