Photo: KENA BETANCUR / AFP / Getty Images
Flights at Newark Liberty International Airport faced major disruptions Monday (March 23) after the air traffic control tower was evacuated due to reports of smoke, which officials later traced to a burning smell from an elevator. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a ground stop for all departures at the busy New Jersey airport shortly before 8 a.m., halting outgoing flights and causing delays for hundreds of travelers.
According to Reuters, air traffic controllers were forced to leave the tower after noticing the odor. The FAA confirmed the evacuation happened around 7:30 a.m. and said controllers quickly moved operations to a backup facility on site. Delays escalated rapidly, with more than 1,800 flights delayed at one point and maximum wait times reaching nearly two and a half hours, as reported by MSN.
The situation remained unstable throughout the morning, with the possibility of additional delays still considered "medium" by officials as of late morning. Flight disruptions affected not only Newark but also arrivals and departures from major airspace regions across the United States and Canada, including cities like Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, DC, New York, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Jacksonville, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Halifax, and Quebec City.
Travelers were urged to check their flight status with airlines before heading to the airport due to the ongoing uncertainty, according to TravelPulse. Newark Airport, which serves over 130,000 passengers daily, is among the busiest in the country, making the disruption especially significant.
The tower evacuation and flight delays came just hours after a deadly collision between an Air Canada plane and an airport vehicle at nearby LaGuardia Airport in New York City, which led to that airport’s shutdown overnight.
By midday, the FAA lifted the ground stop at Newark, but officials warned that delays and congestion could continue into the afternoon as airport operations worked to recover. The root cause of the burning smell was identified as an issue with the elevator gears, but no injuries were reported.