FAA says nationwide ground stop is over after thousands of flights canceled
FAA says nationwide ground stop is over after thousands of flights canceled
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed the ground stop on “instability” from an “incredibly old air traffic system,” and wouldn’t rule out the possibility of another outage happening at some point in the future.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced that the nationwide ground stop it issued earlier on Friday has been lifted, nearly five hours after thousands of flights were canceled across the country.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a press conference Friday night that the airspace has reopened and some flights have started to take off, but warned that “it’ll be slow.”
“It’s going to take us some time to unwind what happened this afternoon,” he said.
Duffy said that “instability” in the radar communications at air traffic control centers began just after 3:30 p.m. ET. At the time, there were more than 3,500 planes in the air when the ground stop was issued —he blamed it on an “incredibly old air traffic system.”
“We have old switches, old routers, we use 1980s little copper lines,” Duffy said. “It’s an old system that went down. It went down everywhere. It got overloaded.”
He went on to blame Congress for not providing the funds to update the outdated infrastructure.
“I can’t build things if I don’t have money,” Duffy said.
Last year Congress approved $12.5 billion to overhaul the outdated technology that air traffic controllers rely on, including old copper wires and radio systems. On social media, the GOP-controlled Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the FAA, noted that “no new” air traffic area control centers have been built “since [Lyndon B. Johnson] was in office.”
On Friday, Duffy asked for $50 billion from Congress to modernize the nation’s air traffic control system. “This is bipartisan. This is American,” he said.
He also didn’t rule out the possibility of another outage due to the “analog” system. “You will have more of them unless the American people and the Congress tell us to build, and I can’t wait for that,” Duffy said.
When asked if he could say with certainty that the problem wasn’t caused by a cyberattack, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said, “There is nothing certain right now. It doesn’t appear that way.”
Earlier in the day, Mullin told reporters that there was no reason to suspect a national security threat was behind the outage.
“There’s no reason for the public to be afraid or scared for their loved ones,” Mullin said.
“This is not another 9/11,” he added. “This is a telecommunications outage; this is much different.”
As news of the ground stop spread, Duffy wrote in a post on X, “The @FAAnews issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers. FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them.”
As of 9:30 p.m. ET, there were more than 25,100 flights delayed on Friday and more than 6,600 canceled within, into or out of the U.S., according to FlightAware.com, a live flight tracker website.
There were more than 30,000 departures and arrivals scheduled for the remainder of the day, according to flight tracking app Flighty, the New York Times reported.
Airlines for America, an industry trade organization representing major U.S. airlines, wrote in a post on X, “Safety is always our top priority.” It added that it’s in communication with the Department of Transportation and the FAA. The association encouraged travelers to be in touch with their airline carrier for “real-time updates.”
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois and a ranking member of an aviation subcommittee, called for an investigation into the nationwide ground stop.
“The safety of our skies is built on redundancies,” she wrote on X in response to Duffy’s update. “Whatever led to the nationwide ground stop will warrant a thorough and complete investigation. As Aviation Subcommittee Ranking Member, I’ll be demanding answers from the FAA.”
Citing multiple sources, CBS News reported Friday that “an update to the private communications network that connects America’s air traffic control system caused the system to reboot, leading to a crash and a communications outage.” It reported that the system is operated by L3Harris Technologies. The Wall Street Journal also reported that the outage appeared to be affecting the “telecommunications network overseen by L3Harris Technologies,” which “handles crucial radio frequencies that air-traffic controllers use to communicate with pilots.”
Microsoft said that its own global outage — from which it is still recovering — did not appear to be a factor. Mullin also said they weren’t connected.
The National Weather Service told the New York Times that a viral screenshot claiming that its weather radar is down is “outdated,” adding that it “has not experienced a disruption to its radar systems today.”
Earlier this week, the FAA announced the nationwide rollout of a new $875 million artificial intelligence tool to help air-traffic controllers avoid delays. Called SMART — short for Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories — it was made by an AI company called ASI and had previously been in use at Washington, D.C., airports since late September.
On social media, ASI said, “The current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC.”
A Yahoo reporter who was stuck on the tarmac on a United Airlines flight waiting to depart from Los Angeles International Airport passed along updates from the cabin. She said her pilot told passengers that “what happened was a communications outage that started in Kansas City Center, which is responsible for the airspace above the middle of America, and it spread nationwide.”
She also said she received an update from United Airlines, which said, “Air traffic control is limiting the number of planes allowed to land and depart each hour in Los Angeles, affecting several flights. We’re monitoring the situation closely to get you to your destination as soon as possible.”
Around 7 p.m. ET, she said her flight “going over the Pacific” had departed. The New York Times has reported that “some international flights from the United States have been allowed to depart amid the ground stop.” Alaska Airlines said in a statement that flights within Hawaii and Alaska have also been continuing, as have longer-distance flights to and from Honolulu.
Nationwide ground stops are pretty rare. The last time such an event occurred was in January 2023, when a pilot notification system went down. Before then, a nationwide ground stop was issued following the September 11, 2001, attacks.
US officials say the disruption was caused by old equipment overloading and not a cyber-attack.
The prime minister will pledge to “do things differently” at the Welsh Labour conference on Saturday.
Efforts to address the underlying problem with Outlook, Teams and Copilot are complete, the tech firm says.
“Socialism,” once considered a scarlet letter in the United States, is growing increasingly buzzy and mainstream as a slate of politicians embracing the label have gained significant ground.Yet polls show a rising acceptance of socialism in the United States, a quintessentially capitalist country where politicians have long conflated the term with communism to vilify it.
The incident, which lasted about four hours, was the longest in the country since the one after 11 September 2001.
A university pauses recruitment amid a drop in learning disability nurses employed by the NHS.
Crews faced a “perfect storm” of challenges during the UK’s record-breaking weather, it’s claimed.
A Microsoft outage involving services like Outlook and Teams impacted many users, companies and government services.
A round-up of stories from local newspapers and the BBC from the past week in the West of England.
A plaque is unveiled close to the original AA run site near Aldermaston Wharf.
Vera Holland’s daughter says her family “feels the loss and heartbreak of losing her every day”.
Today marks World Diabetes Day and almost 6,000 people on the island are on the diabetes register.
The Federal Aviation Administration has lifted its nationwide ground stop. Flight chaos will continue after nearly 7,000 flights were canceled.
Lancashire scientists are hoping to develop more tailored plans for people who struggle with migraines.
BUDAPEST, Nov 14 () – Hungarian authorities have recovered nearly $20 million in cash, some buried in forests or hidden in farm buildings and warehouses, in a bribery probe into Miklos Sesztak, a minister under former right-wing leader Viktor Orban. Prime Minister Peter Magyar ousted nationalist Orban after 16 years in power in an April election, pledging to mend ties with the European Union, marred by years of conflict under Orban, and to launch a sweeping anti-corruption drive into allegati
The porcelain, which was found at a house in Oxfordshire, go up for auction on Wednesday.
The team behind the Tyne Derwent Way are set to submit a scaled-down proposal for lottery funds.
The Thames path in Oxford had been shut near Donnington Bridge for urgent repairs since August.
A woman with Crohn’s disease says she has been denied access to facilities due to a lack of understanding.
Guernsey Retail Group says the opening could be a positive for other local independent shops.
Powered by WPeMatico