FAA Ground Stop Ends After Network Failure Cancels Thousands
The FAA ended a five-hour nationwide ground stop on Friday evening after a failure in its telecommunications infrastructure canceled over 6,300 flights.
System Failure Causes Major Delays
A failure in the Federal Aviation Administration Telecommunications Infrastructure network caused the country's most disastrous ground stop since September 11. The outage lasted five hours and affected freight, mail, and passenger flights across the United States. FlightAware reported that over 6,300 flights were canceled while another 9,500 faced delays during the incident.
Modernization Project Underway Now
The issue occurred while the agency replaced decades-old copper wires with high-speed fiber-optic cables to handle newer aircraft like drones. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed old switches and routers alongside data overload during a Friday briefing at the White House. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin stated that putting patches into the system overwhelmed the older technology as new equipment was installed.
Funding Request Increased Dramatically
Secretary Duffy initially asked for $30.1 billion in funding but later requested $50 billion during the same briefing to upgrade airports and air traffic control. The system is managed by contractor L3Harris Technologies, which has completed 50 percent of its modernization project as of May. A separate contract with AT&T to upgrade the network is worth $73 million though costs may rise into billions over time.
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