An all-out air travel nightmare erupted Monday as the Federal Aviation Administration ordered ground stops at major tri-state airport after major tri-state airport because of a failed circuit connecting tri-state hubs, officials say.

Newark, Teterboro and Philadelphia International were first to shut down, around 10 a.m. Five hours later, the ground stop orders remained active. Around 1 p.m., JFK and LaGuardia were added to the order, though the latter appeared to be upgraded to a ground delay within an hour.

"Equipment outage" was cited as the reason for all of them.

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FAA Administration Bryan Bedford later explained that an older Verizon circuit shared by the airports failed, and when it went to flip into backup mode, crews discovered a break in that backup fiber cable somewhere between Newark and New Brunswick. That fiber cable would take about 13 hours to repair, Bedford said.

Flightaware24, a live flight tracker, earlier showed dozens of jets lined up on a Newark runway awaiting takeoff. The planes later returned to their gates.

As passengers stewed, those behind the controls had jokes.

"Do you guys know what you call an airliner that is going backwards?" one person is heard saying on air traffic control radio.

The response is, "No."

The answer? "A receding airline."

There was a second joke: "Why did the librarian get kicked off the plane?"

"Overbooked."

The estimated return of service for both Newark and Teterboro was pushed back several times, most recently until 2:45 p.m. JFK's order was estimated to lift at 3 p.m., with the likelihood of extension.

LaGuardia got operational within about an hour, with lingering delays averaging 44-minutes.

The ground stop at Newark started shortly after 10 a.m. The orders at Teterboro and Philadelphia International came earlier.