Technical problems grounded flights at major East Coast airports on Monday after a radio communications system in Philadelphia and its backup failed. At least five airports, including four serving the New York region, experienced significant ground stops. Bryan Bedford, who leads the Federal Aviation Administration, said La Guardia Airport resumed delayed operations and John F.

Kennedy International Airport would soon be back up and running. However, flights to and from Newark Liberty International Airport and Philadelphia International Airport would be grounded "indefinitely" after efforts to replace the failed radio communications module were unsuccessful. Teterboro Airport, a hub for private jets, was also in a ground stop.

The outages began Monday morning when an antiquated communications circuit at a Philadelphia-region control center failed, forcing controllers to switch to a backup fiber optic system that had been cut by a construction crew. The cut damaged a 600-foot section of line between New Brunswick, N. J., and Newark, crippling the center’s ability to transmit radio and radar data.

Repairing the fiber optic cable could take roughly 13 hours. By early Monday afternoon, the outage had forced at least 90 flights to divert and caused an unspecified number of cancellations. Bedford and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy rolled out a new AI tool to help controllers avoid delays, but acknowledged the FAA’s aging infrastructure remains vulnerable.

Duffy called on Congress to appropriate tens of billions of dollars more to modernize the system.