faa ground stop: All US flights halted for hours by telecom outage, government says no cyberattack

Under a faa ground stop on Friday, 13 November, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) stopped every flight from departing any airport in the country. A telecommunications outage in the air traffic control communications network kept planes on the ground nationwide for about 4 to 5 hours. The airspace later reopened, but thousands of flights were cancelled or delayed. The government says it was not a cyberattack.

What happened

The FAA declared a nationwide ground stop, citing extraordinary circumstances and safety. That meant no new flights could take off from any airport. Aircraft already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations.

According to the tracking service Flightradar24, about 3,100 aircraft bound for US airports were airborne at the time. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said all of them landed safely and the public was never at risk.

What caused it

Officials called it a telecommunications outage. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy explained that routers and switches on the network that links air traffic control centres became overloaded with data and started giving inconsistent information, so the system was shut down for safety.

Officials said new technology and security updates added to the older system had put strain on its ageing equipment. Mullin said there was no sign of a cyberattack or any nefarious activity. The investigation is continuing.

How many flights were hit

Estimates differ between tracking services, but every count is huge:

• Flightradar24 (cited by Al Jazeera): more than 4,700 flights cancelled and about 10,000 delayed on Friday.
• FlightAware (cited by CBS News): 9,159 cancellations and 7,190 delays on Friday, and more than 3,800 cancellations on Saturday.
• Passengers were stranded at major airports including Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Miami.

Background

Government reviews had already warned about ageing equipment in the US air traffic control system. Duffy himself described the system as very old and said outages like this will happen again without action. Aviation safety experts called a nationwide halt of all departures rare and unprecedented.

What happens next

• The airspace is open again, but airlines are still repositioning aircraft and crews, so delays and cancellations may continue for some time.
• The government is talking about a full replacement of the air traffic control system, estimated at about 50 billion dollars, and has urged Congress to approve emergency funding quickly.
• Bangladeshi passengers flying to the US, or connecting through US airports, should check the latest status of their flight with their airline before travelling.