New Delhi: A construction crew cutting a cable in New Jersey brought flights across New York and eastern United States to a standstill on Monday. But it wasn’t just one cable that was severed.
The primary communication circuit at Philadelphia’s Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) failed, and when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) tried to switch to the back-up, they realised that fibre-optical cable had been cut earlier. The sudden loss of communication forced the authorities to restrict air traffic affecting thousands of flights across five major airports including Newark, JFK, LaGuardia, Philadelphia, and Logan in Boston.
What happened?
TRACONs are facilities that manage aircrafts as they enter and depart from airports. According to the FAA, these systems receive surveillance data and flight-plans so that air-traffic controllers can then manage the flights and give them weather related updates and other information.
During Monday’s crisis, NJ Transit reported that the fibre-optic cable had been accidentally cut while a construction team was working on the Delco Lead project between New Brunswick and North Brunswick, a project designed to protect rail equipment from severe weather.
It is unclear though who is to blame for the cut. US transport secretary Sean Duffy initially said that an Amtrak construction crew had cut the line, Amtrak responded saying that it was not responsible, reported Reuters.
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The role of a fibre-optic cable
A fibre-optic cable is essentially a very thin glass pathway for light. Instead of sending information in the form of electrical signals through copper wires, the fibre-optic converts digital information into pulses of light generated by lasers. These pulses travel through the glass fibre and are then converted back into digital information at the other end.
According to the FAA, the severed fibre-optic cable allowed controllers to communicate with other controllers, pilots, ground personnel, and other aviation authorities. When that link failed the FAA immediately imposed restrictions on the affected airports, with the impact spreading further too.
Gates grew crowded, departing aircrafts could not take off, arrivals had to wait or were diverted, and flight-crew found themselves in wrong places.
At Newark, the number of delayed flights rose to nearly 23,000 by the end of the day, read an FAA advisory. Reuters reported that nearly 7,000 flights were delayed or cancelled across the US, and over 100 were diverted. The telecom line was eventually repaired and airports resumed operations on Monday evening.
Similar aircraft disruptions
This is not the first time that such wire cuts have disrupted FAA communication. In 2012, someone cut and stole telephone cables leading to a widespread outage affecting over 1,500 FAA employees. The incident cost nearly $38,000 to repair, according to court records.
In India, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport Terminal 2 in 2022 faced a similar fibre-optic cable related issue. When a fibre-optic cable was accidentally damaged during construction work, it led to a network outage that impacted airport ticketing systems.
The airport had to then manually check tickets and passengers faced long queues at the check-in and baggage-drop counters. However, the snag lasted only two hours, and unlike in New York, it did not affect the core air traffic control network.