FAA blames error messages for switch to backup fiber line before outage

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) blamed error messages that caused the agency to switch to a backup fiber line that halted flights in multiple northeast airports this week.

The FAA said it was advised on Sunday by L3Harris, a technology contractor, to switch to the backup lines in order to begin troubleshooting at a Philadelphia air traffic control facility, according to Reuters . The agency continued that a New Jersey Transit contractor on Monday accidentally cut the backup fiber ⁠line.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said during a Wednesday conference that, “We need to get rid of the old system,” per Reuters.

“When it fails, ​we just don’t have ​the redundancy that we ⁠would get if we had a modern architecture,” he stated.

The outage affected flights at major airports including Newark Liberty International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. At Newark, roughly 1 in 3 departing flights were canceled Monday, according to data from FlightAware .

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law last year, provided the FAA with $12.5 billion to modernize the national air traffic control system. Officials from the aviation agency have asked for an additional $10 billion from Congress to upgrade the air traffic control system.

Bedford also said during a press conference Monday that the 600-foot fiber cable cut was somewhere between Newark and New Brunswick, N.J. The FAA administrator later said the fiber cable was cut earlier Monday.

He confirmed that about 90 flights had been diverted as a result of the outage, and the FAA does not know the number of cancellations.

“This is why we’re asking for a budget to replace all of this stuff,” he added.

When asked about the outages, the FAA referred to a social media post from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, writing, “This incident underscores the need for additional funding to modernize aging infrastructure and prevent disruptions like this in the future.”

An L3Harris spokesperson told The Hill, “L3Harris is fully committed to the safety and reliability of the National Airspace System. We work closely with the FAA each day to support the safety-critical systems they rely on, and we followed established protocols throughout this event, as we do with all events. For more information about this specific event, we’d refer you to the FAA.”