George Wirt/Shutterstock Add Jalopnik on Google: Google Discover With the world converging on New York City for the United Nations General Assembly, it was the perfect time to grind the Big Apple's airspace to a halt. An Amtrak construction contractor cut a fiber-optic cable in New Jersey alongside the Northeast Corridor on Monday, sparking a regional FAA communication equipment outage. The agency halted flights in and out of Newark Liberty, John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia, Teterboro and Philadelphia as it works quickly to restore the link. As with most things in aviation, air traffic control infrastructure relies on redundancy. NBC News reported that a major circuit blew at the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility and the backup system failed. The backup system's Verizon fiber-optic cable was severed at an Amtrak construction site in New Jersey somewhere between New Brunswick and Newark. The telecommunications giant claims that they bear no responsibility for the incident. The fix should be up and running soon. Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford said the cable break would take 13 hours to repair. While Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy took to social media to say the incident illustrates the need to fund air traffic control modernization, the outage really highlights the importance of contacting local authorities before you dig into the ground. Come on! Call before you dig, folks! Philadelphia TRACON was the supposed to be the release valve Gary Hershorn/Getty Images The world is quickly learning that Philadelphia TRACON, which integrates the region's radar approach control and tower air traffic control operations, is a vital part of air traffic infrastructure. The FAA issued ground stops at all five previously mentioned airports this morning, but has since resumed flights at a limited capacity at LaGuardia and Philadelphia. However, the damage has already been done. According to FlightAware, over 600 flights at Newark have been canceled today. The FAA has long been stretched thin managing the airspace around New York City. In 2023, the agency transferred 100 square miles of Newark's airspace to Philadelphia TRACON to alleviate the workload on New York TRACON. Today's incident was the one improbable event that no one who recommended the shift wanted to happen. The only way this could be worse is if there wasn't a ground stop at Newark and only a single controller was managing everything.