What forced the US to ground all planes? A router switch, we now know
Summary
A communications failure during routine router replacement work led the FAA to ground flights nationwide for more than four hours on Friday. The FAA lifted the restriction that night, but cancellations and delays continued as airlines worked through backlogs.Key Facts
- The FAA ordered the nationwide ground stop at 3:54 p.m. Eastern time on Friday and lifted it at 8:15 p.m.
- The FAA said a telecommunications outage affected air route traffic control centres.
- Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a router overloaded during work to replace old copper wire with fibre-optic lines.
- Officials said the failure caused intermittent communications and radar gaps.
- The outage affected communications at 17 of the FAA’s 22 en route centres.
- More than 9,000 U.S. flights were cancelled on Friday, followed by more than 5,000 on Saturday.
- Aircraft already in the air could continue to their destinations and land during the ground stop.
- U.S. officials ruled out a cyberattack as the cause.
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