Hundreds of flights from US east coast airports were cancelled or delayed on Monday due to a telecommunications line outage caused by a construction mistake, US officials said.
Ground stops were issued for John F. Kennedy Airport and LaGuardia airports, as well as an airport in Teterboro, New Jersey, as 130 world leaders and dozens of ministers are arriving in New York for the annual high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
Transport Secretary Sean Duffy said on social media later on Monday that flights were resuming at LaGuardia Airport and Philadelphia, while flights into Newark and JFK Airports were paused.
“An Amtrak construction crew accidentally cut into a fibre line in New Jersey which caused a telecom outage and forced FAA to pause flights in the Northeast,” Duffy said.