Trump rules out cyberattack or AI in US flight disruption probe
US authorities are investigating a telecommunications outage that led the Federal Aviation Administration to implement a nationwide ground stop.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that a nationwide flight disruption was unlikely to be the result of artificial intelligence or a cyberattack, according to the Times of India. The statement came as officials investigated a telecommunications outage that caused the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to issue a ground stop across the country.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters outside the White House that there was no indication of a national security threat behind the incident. Mullin stated that all passengers were safe and all flights had been accounted for, noting that the event was a telecommunications outage.
The disruption affected all 22 Air Route Traffic Control Centres. Flight-tracking platform FlightAware reported that approximately 7,000 flights were delayed or cancelled following the ground stop, while Flightradar24 data showed 4,042 flights were airborne and heading to US airports when the order was issued.
Mullin dismissed any link between the FAA outage and a major Microsoft outage reported a day earlier, calling them separate issues. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed on X that FAA technicians were investigating the communication failure.
An airline source told CNN that the FAA had not yet established the cause of the outage and that the issue was affecting different facilities in different ways. Mullin said authorities are continuing to assess the situation.
