US air traffic was halted nationwide for more than four hours on a Friday night, forcing planes to stay on the ground in an emergency response, according to reporting by lrt.lt.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency directive ordering all departing aircraft to remain on the ground until further notice due to extraordinary circumstances and safety considerations. According to Delfi, inbound international flights were handled on a case-by-case basis before the agency reported serious communication glitches across multiple air traffic control centers.
Flight-tracking platform 15min.lt reported that nearly 7,000 flights were delayed or cancelled as the disruption rippled through the national airspace. Before the nationwide ground stop took effect, the FAA had already halted flights specifically in Chicago.
“Visoje šalyje mūsų centruose patyrėme radarų ir ryšių sutrikimus. Todėl visiškai sustabdėme skrydžius. Ore buvo daugiau nei 3 500 lėktuvų. (…) Mes nepraradome visų ryšių, nepraradome visų radarų, tačiau dėl kilusio nestabilumo, siekdami būti ypač atsargūs, nusprendėme imtis šių priemonių. Mūsų oro eismo valdymo sistema yra neįtikėtinai sena ir neatlaikė tokio didelio duomenų srauto” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said.
According to LRT, Duffy said that more than 3,500 planes were in the air when the instability forced authorities to act.
Our air traffic control system is unbelievably old and didn’t handle the massive data flow.”
Lrytas reported that Duffy explained switches and routers were overloaded with data and stopped working as aging hardware failed under the load. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin rejected speculation about cyber threats during a late-night White House press conference covered by lrytas.
“[T]his is completely unrelated to Microsoft,” Markwayne Mullin told lrytas, adding that “there was actually no cyber attack.”
Authorities lifted the restrictions later that evening, reopening the airspace at 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time, though officials warned that clearing the massive flight backlog would take time, as reported by lrytas.
Duffy urged lawmakers to approve funding to upgrade the infrastructure following the system failure.
Flight-tracking data showed that nearly 7,000 flights were either delayed or cancelled across the United States during the disruption.
Transportation officials reopened the US airspace at 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday after halting departures for more than four hours.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said that security agencies found no evidence of a cyberattack or any connection to Microsoft software issues.
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