From ABC News · ABC News · · 2m
FAA ground stop: old routers blamed for nationwide flight chaos
A four-hour nationwide ground stop grounded thousands of flights Friday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed outdated equipment and called for fifty billion dollars in funding.
In brief
A four-hour nationwide ground stop grounded thousands of flights Friday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed outdated equipment and called for fifty billion dollars in funding. The FAA ordered a rare nationwide ground stop Friday that canceled thousands of flights. Officials blamed overloaded legacy equipment…
Nationwide ground stop halts all flights
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a rare nationwide ground stop for all airports Friday, disrupting travel coast to coast with thousands of canceled flights and stranded passengers.
Duffy blames old routers and switches
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed old technology that became overloaded. He pointed to nineteen eighties copper lines, old switches and old routers that went down everywhere.
“We use 1980s little copper lines. It's an old system that went down and went down everywhere. It got overloaded.”
No cyberattack, officials say
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters there was no indication the incident stemmed from a cyberattack, but that officials were still investigating.
Duffy calls for fifty billion dollars
Duffy called on Congress to provide fifty billion dollars for a complete overhaul of the air traffic control system, calling the situation an emergency.
“This is an emergency. I want Congress to give us emergency funding. This is bipartisan. This is American. I want $50 billion.”
More outages will happen without upgrades
Duffy warned that more outages like Friday's ground stop will occur unless Congress funds system modernization. Flying will continue being less safe without upgrades, he said.
“You will have more of these. You will have more of them unless the American people and the Congress tell us to build.”
Ground stop lifted after four hours
The nationwide ground stop was lifted after more than four hours. United Airlines said it was resuming operations, including some planned Friday night flights.
Recovery will take time, Duffy says
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said it will take time to get back to capacity and to unwind the afternoon's disruptions. He hopes for far better movement by Saturday.
“I believe that it's going to take us some time to get back to capacity.”
System expected to recover by Thanksgiving
Duffy said he believes the air traffic control system will be back up and operational heading into Thanksgiving travel, though delays and cancellations may continue in the near term.
The headline
The FAA ordered a rare nationwide ground stop Friday that canceled thousands of flights. Officials blamed overloaded legacy equipment and said more outages will occur without congressional funding to modernize the system.
