US blames system upgrade for longest nationwide FAA ground stop since 9/11
A nationwide FAA ground stop Friday, the longest since 9/11, was caused by a router upgrade that flooded the air traffic control system with 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds.
The United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has identified routine maintenance on an antiquated telecommunications system as the likely cause of a rare, hours-long nationwide FAA ground stop that halted all air traffic inside the country on Friday.
At a news conference in Washington, DC, on Saturday, Duffy explained that maintenance was performed to upgrade a router from copper to fiber at a "very remote location." This work caused the router to flood other systems with 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds, disrupting radar feeds and communications between air traffic controllers and airplanes.
Contractor Under Scrutiny
The Transportation Department identified L3Harris, a US-based aerospace and defense company, as the contractor performing the maintenance. What we're working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning was it installator error from L3Harris? Or did they install a faulty router? Duffy said, noting the company "didn't meet the moment." They own this network. They're our prime contractor. I can't go somewhere else. They own it."
We're going to hold people accountable.
No Cyberattack Evidence
Amid concerns that the ground stop might have resulted from a cyberattack, the US government clarified Saturday it did not "believe" that was the cause. "Once we were able to isolate the work being done at this location, all of our systems came back online," Duffy said.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford echoed these remarks, stating "we see zero evidence of anything nefarious, and zero evidence of anything AI-related." A root cause analysis will be shared with the public when available.
Recovery Underway
As airlines and thousands of travelers recover from Friday's ground stop—the longest and only second nationwide stop since 9/11—the FAA expects full schedule integrity by the end of Sunday. "We have crews and aircraft that are out of position for 12,000 flights that were lost," Bedford said. "These crews, pilots and flight attendants need to get to their points of reconnection with their schedules."
Bedford estimated about 4,000 to 5,000 flights out of the 41,000 scheduled on Saturday would be canceled, adding that will set us up for a full recovery tomorrow. I do think the worst is behind us.
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