The Federal Aviation Administration lifted a rare ground stop at all U.S. airports Friday evening, after a communications issue affected air traffic control centers—which Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin declined to rule out could have been caused by a cyber attack.
Key Facts
The stoppage was lifted at 8:15pm ET, following an advisory issued around 4 p.m. EST that said “all departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice” and that “inbound international flights will be managed on a case by case basis.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement the ground stop was ordered after a “communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.”
Mullin told reporters Friday evening, “There’s no reason for the public to be afraid or scared for your loved ones,” rejecting comparisons to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Mullin did not rule out the possibility of a cyber attack and when asked if the disruption was related to artificial intelligence, Mullin said, “You just can’t rule out anything at this point,” but preliminary reports indicated Friday’s disruptions are not due to a cyber attack, according to CNN, which cited two unnamed law enforcement officials.
Air Space Intelligence, the company behind a new advisory and planning AI system rolled out by the FAA in September, said in a statement the ground stop is “not based on or a result of” its AI system or any product of its integration with the FAA.
Air traffic control towers were operational during the ground stop and some flights took off during the outage, according to CBS News reporter Olivia Rinaldi, who noted multiple unnamed sources told CBS an “update to the private communications network that connects America’s air traffic control system caused the system to reboot,” resulting in a system crash.
Crucial quote
“Today’s nationwide ground stop happened because our air traffic control system is operating on DECADES-OLD, analog equipment that simply cannot compete with the demands of the 21st century,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday evening.
Tangent
Though they do not appear to be related, the communication issues come as Microsoft 365, which includes the emailing platform Outlook, continued facing service disruptions Friday. Microsoft said Friday afternoon it did not have an ETA for full recovery, shooting down speculation the problems were due to a cyber attack or internal artificial intelligence issues.
Key Background
The last time a national ground stop was ordered was in 2023, when a database maintenance error crashed the Notice to Air Missions pilot alert system. The disruption lasted for roughly 12 hours and marked the first nationwide ground stop since after the Sept. 11 attacks. More than 1,000 flights were cancelled.
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