An extremely rare nationwide aviation ground stop was issued Friday across the United States (US) due to “extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said.
The development raised concerns of a fresh terrorist cyber attack or other murky undertakings,but the suspicion was not rooted in substance.
The FAA issued the advisory around 4 p.m. Friday, saying inbound international flights would be managed on a case-by-case basis.
The stoppage was potentially caused by an upgrade to new software, a source told The New York Post.
Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the stoppage was due to a “communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.”
“FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them,” he said on X.
Three days ago, the FAA announced that a new AI tool called “SMART” meant to help with planning was rolled out to all 22 Air Route Traffic Control Centers across the nation.
Air Route Traffic Control Centers are regional hubs that maintain high-altitude flights across the country.
Asked whether AI was at the root of the issue, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters Friday, “We’re not ruling out anything at this point.”
He declined to put a timeframe on how long the “telecommunication outage” would last but said the priority right now was to make sure planes were landing safely.
A New York Post editor who was on a flight from Los Angeles to JFK Airport in Queens said a flight attendant announced that the plane would continue to New York as planned.
Nationwide ground stops have been issued only twice before: in January 2023 over a broken pilot notification system and after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Flights were halted for two days after the attacks and resumed with significantly stricter security measures.
The unprecedented ground stoppage Friday comes on the heels of a massive Microsoft outage that affected millions of users worldwide.
Mullin insisted the two issues were not linked.
“I don’t see any reason to connect those two at all,” he said. “Those are separate issues.”
Some international flights were taking off despite the outage, according to flight tracker Flightradar24.
*PHOTO CAPTION: Stranded travellers at the Ronald Reagan Washington national airport in Virginia…Friday.
