FAA grounds all flights nationwide due to communications failure
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On Friday at 3:54 PM EST, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a ground stop for airports nationwide, prohibiting flights on the ground from taking off; flights in the air may land, and the measure remains in effect until 11 PM that night; inbound international flights are handled on a case-by-case basis. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the cause was a communications problem affecting all air route traffic control centers. Law enforcement officials told CNN there is currently no evidence of a cyberattack. Some experts speculated on television that a failure in the SMART upgrade of the cloud-based AI air traffic control platform, which was scheduled to go live that day, may be the cause; this claim has not been confirmed.
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The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop at all U.S. airports effective 3:54 p.m. EST Friday until 11 p.m., citing "extraordinary circumstances" and "reasons of safety," allowing airborne flights to land but barring departures. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication yet of a nefarious attack and described it as "a telecommunication outage," while declining to rule out a cyberattack; Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy attributed it to "a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers." The article notes expert speculation that a mishap with the new cloud-based, AI-supported "SMART" air traffic management platform, scheduled to go live Friday, could be to blame, and that it is just the second nationwide ground stop since Sept. 11, 2001.
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