news.today
Hello · Register today | LoginHello · My Account[—] [33]
US

US air traffic halted in rare nationwide ground stop after tech upgrade fails

Summarised from 27 outlets · 111 reports · Updated 15 Nov, 03:02 · Archive

A four-hour nationwide Federal Aviation Administration ground stop on Friday, the longest in 25 years, cancelled thousands of flights after a contractor's maintenance work caused communications equipment to fail.

The US Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide ground stop on Friday afternoon, halting all departures and landings at American airports for approximately four hours. The closure was the longest nationwide ground stop in 25 years and only the second since the September 11 attacks.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the outage was caused by routine maintenance work by contractor L3Harris to replace aged copper telecommunications wire with fibre optic cable at a 'remote location' operated by the FAA. Duffy stated that the copper wire was so old it was being discontinued, necessitating the upgrade. However, during the work, the newly installed router began flooding other routers in the air traffic control system with excessive data.

'We had over 1,000 connection attempts every 4 to 5 seconds,' Duffy told reporters at a press conference on Saturday. This data overload disrupted radar feeds and communications between air traffic controllers and aeroplanes, prompting officials to order the ground stop for safety reasons. 'When we see that, your safety is paramount. We shut down the airspace,' Duffy said.

Duffy said investigators had not yet determined the root cause of the problem. 'What we're working to determine was whether we had incompetence—meaning, was it user error or installation error from L3Harris—or did they install a faulty router?' he said. 'We haven't determined what the fault was.' He added that L3Harris, which he described as the FAA's 'legacy provider', had 'failed to meet the moment'. The company had not yet responded to requests for comment.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was 'no indication as of yet' that a cyberattack had caused the communications failure. Duffy reiterated that officials did not believe the incident resulted from malicious activity.

About 16,000 flights were delayed or cancelled across Friday and Saturday. The ground stop was lifted at approximately 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, but widespread disruption continued. More than 3,000 flights remained cancelled on Saturday morning, with delays and cancellations expected to persist through the weekend. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said he hoped flight schedules would return to normal by Sunday, stating the 'worst is behind us'.

Former FAA official Mike McCormick warned that recovery could take several days. 'This will take several days in order to be able to get all of the aircraft, all the passengers, all the baggage, all of the flight crews, all where they need to be positioned to get the system up and running,' he said. The disruption affected professional and college sports teams, with some college football games being delayed by hours or rescheduled to accommodate stranded teams.

Duffy called on Congress to provide $50 billion for modernising the nation's air traffic control system. He said the agency had received only 'partial payment' from Congress for necessary upgrades. He vowed that officials would 'hold people accountable' once investigations were complete.

US air traffic halted in rare nationwide ground stop after tech upgrade fails
Image: HuffPost UK

Comments (0)

How it is being reported

In this story: Federal Aviation Administration · Sean Duffy · L3Harris · Markwayne Mullin · United States

This summary was written by AI from the headlines and standfirsts above, and states as fact only what at least two outlets report. How we use AI · Report a problem · Corrections log