US ground stop caused by telecoms network upgrade, says official
A faulty router during a network upgrade led to the longest nationwide flight grounding in the US since 2001, according to BBC News.
A nationwide ground stop in the United States on Friday caused the longest grounding of flights since the 11 September 2001 attacks, according to BBC News. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the stoppage occurred when part of a key communications system was being switched from discontinued copper wiring to fibre.
The outage, which lasted more than four hours, affected thousands of flights and passengers. US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin stated there was no indication of a cyber-attack and that everyone was safe.
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) administrator Bryan Bedford said 17 out of 22 air route traffic control centres experienced instability in voice and ground communications. He noted it took 45 minutes to identify the problem because maintenance is logged manually on paper.
The issue arose when a router installed by government contractor L3Harris began sending 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds. Duffy estimated a complete overhaul of the system would cost $50bn and said authorities would investigate if the outage was caused by faulty equipment or incompetence.
FlightAware reported that more than 8,500 flights were delayed and nearly 8,000 were cancelled on Friday. On Saturday, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines cancelled 20 per cent of their flights, while American Airlines cancelled 520 journeys.
Under the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, passengers on cancelled or significantly delayed domestic flights of three hours or international flights of six hours must be offered alternative travel or a full refund.
