Tech and AI
US officials blame overloaded decades-old equipment for the nationwide ground stop, as cancellations run into Saturday
- What happened
- The FAA lifted its nationwide ground stop on Friday night after more than four hours; officials blamed new technology overloading old telecoms equipment, not a cyber-attack.
- Why it matters
- It was the longest US shutdown since 11 September 2001, and thousands more flights were cancelled on Saturday as airlines tried to recover.
- What’s next
- Officials expect normal operations in time for the Thanksgiving rush; the administration has asked Congress for $30.1 billion to modernise air traffic control.
How this story developed
- 00:29First report
- 00:332nd source
- 00:33Confirmed
- 00:42+2 outlets in 2 min
- 04:47+3 outlets in 28 min
- 08:428th source
- 00:29First reportFrance 24
- 00:332nd sourceSouth China Morning Post
- 00:33ConfirmedWas: Single source
- 00:42+2 outlets in 2 minWired and TechCrunch
- 04:47+3 outlets in 28 minBBC News World, The Verge and The Guardian World
- 08:42Latest8th sourceAl Jazeera English
Full story
Airspace reopened
The Federal Aviation Administration lifted its nationwide ground stop at about 8:15pm Eastern time on Friday, more than four hours after it was issued at 3:44pm, The Verge and France 24 reported. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the airspace had reopened “after restoring full functionality” at air traffic control facilities.
“It will take us time (to) resume normal operations… Our top priority is the safety of you and your family when you fly.”
Sean Duffy, US transportation secretary, France 24
France 24 called it the longest nationwide stop since the 9/11 attacks, and only the second time since then that every departure had been halted.
What went wrong
Trump administration officials said new technology being added to the air traffic control system had overloaded antiquated equipment, causing “intermittent” communication and radar gaps, France 24 reported. They said there was no evidence of foul play, and that the disruption was caused neither by a cyber-attack nor by this week’s Microsoft outage.
“This is a legacy system problem. We have old, old switches, old routers. We use 1980s little copper lines.”
Sean Duffy, US transportation secretary, France 24
Earlier in the week the administration had rolled out an AI-powered tool for air traffic controllers, TechCrunch noted, though it was unclear whether it was linked.
Counting the cost
Counts differ by tracker and time. The Guardian, citing Flightradar24, put Friday’s toll at more than 6,600 cancellations and 8,600 delays, with 1,500 flights already cancelled for Sunday. France 24 later said more than 8,200 flights, over 31% of those scheduled, were cancelled, and more than 2,000 more on Saturday. Al Jazeera said over 1.5 million passengers faced disruption, and sports teams scrambled for other transport.
The effects reached abroad: at least 17 flights to and from Hong Kong were cancelled or delayed, and its airport warned of two more days of disruption, the South China Morning Post reported, while US-bound flights from Sydney and Melbourne were held up, the Guardian said.
Pressure to modernise
On the day of the outage Duffy had urged Congress to “act swiftly” on a $30.1 billion request to update the system, on top of $12.5 billion approved last year, Wired and France 24 reported.
Susan Hotle, a transportation engineering professor at Virginia Tech who worked at the FAA, told Wired the outage “really points to how much we need to modernize our air traffic control system”.
“Right now all it takes is for one system to go out, and it affects a wide region at once.”
Susan Hotle, Virginia Tech professor and former FAA staffer, Wired
