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US blames system upgrade for longest nationwide FAA ground stop since 9/11
Al Jazeera • • general
Key Points:
- The rare, hours-long FAA ground stop that halted all US air traffic was attributed to work on an outdated telecommunications system, specifically a router upgrade from copper to fibre at a remote location.
- US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy indicated that a contractor error or faulty equipment caused the router to flood other routers with connection attempts, disrupting radar feeds and communications, prompting the safety-driven ground stop.
- The contractor responsible for the maintenance, L3Harris, is under investigation to determine if the issue was due to installation error or defective equipment, with the company cooperating and emphasizing safety and reliability.
- Officials ruled out a cyberattack as the cause, with FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford confirming the outage stemmed from equipment error and promising a public root cause analysis once available.
- Recovery efforts are underway with expectations to restore full flight schedules by Sunday, although thousands of flights were canceled or delayed, marking the longest nationwide ground stop since 9/11.
