Work to replace old wire caused air traffic control issue that grounded flights: White House
- On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide ground stop for four hours, the longest in 25 years, causing thousands of flight cancellations and stranding hundreds of thousands of passengers across the United States.
- Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said routine maintenance by contractor L3Harris to upgrade copper wiring to fiber optics overloaded antiquated equipment, causing "intermittent" communications and radar gaps that triggered the shutdown.
- Nearly 25,000 flights were delayed and over 9,000 were canceled Friday, representing 14% of all departures, while travelers scrambled to book Amtrak trains and other alternatives to reach destinations.
- FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford stated Saturday that "the worst is behind us" and expects the system to be fully operational by the end of Sunday as airlines work through backlogs.
- Secretary Duffy urged Congress to approve $30 billion in funding to modernize aging infrastructure, calling the investment a "great end-of-the-year Christmas present for the American people" to prevent future disruptions.
79 Articles
79 Articles
Work to replace old copper wire led to the FAA’s ground stop
At a press conference today, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that Friday's nationwide ground stop ordered by the FAA was related to work replacing outdated copper wire with a fiber optic line at a "remote FAA facility." The secretary said that this was "routine maintenance," rather than the result of a major modernization effort. He […]
More than 4,000 scheduled flights have been canceled on Saturday due to the flight shutdown. The Minister of Transport cites the replacement of a cable as the reason.
The US Secretary of Transportation ruled out a cyberattack in connection with the nationwide air traffic disruption. He indicated that one factor could have been modernization work being carried out at the time, including replacing a cable, which could have overloaded systems.
Authorities pointed out that the incident occurred during routine work to update an old line of copper-to-fibre optic communications at a “remote” facility; slow return to normal at airports
They seek to establish whether it was related to a failure in modernization or to any faulty component of installed equipment
It has been confirmed that the U.S. air traffic control chaos occurred during the replacement of a communications network by the company L3Harris. The Secretary of Transportation is investigating worker error and equipment defects and has once again requested $50 billion in emergency funding from Congress to modernize the control system.
Coverage Details
Bias Distribution
- 43% of the sources are Center
Factuality
To view factuality data please Upgrade to Premium
