Single faulty router triggers nationwide US aviation shutdown, officials say

Detailed summary

The nearly five-hour disruption affects more than 20,000 flights as investigators examine possible equipment failure or human error during a telecommunications upgrade.

A massive, near five-hour shutdown of the United States aviation system that has disrupted more than 20,000 flights since Friday may have resulted from a single router installed by government contractor L3Harris, federal officials said.

The incident marks the latest breakdown within the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) ageing air traffic control telecommunications infrastructure, underscoring ongoing difficulties in overhauling legacy equipment whilst keeping active communications operational.

"This was an FAA system that didn't meet the moment," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Saturday.

Duffy stated that L3Harris was conducting scheduled maintenance on Friday to transition lines from legacy copper wiring to optical fibre in at least one remote facility, with officials confirming potential issues involving routers installed in Arkansas and Texas.

"We're working to determine whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error or installer error from L3Harris, or did they install a faulty router? We haven't determined what the fault was," Duffy said.

The newly installed hardware began flooding connected equipment with upwards of 1,000 connection requests every four to five seconds.

The resulting overload affected 17 of the FAA's 22 en route centres nationwide, generating severe data instability between facilities, radar installations, and aircraft, which forced regulators to order a nationwide ground stop.

While communications channels remained open, data transmission faltered.

Duffy observed that the routers scheduled for replacement are roughly 25 years old and originally due for retirement in 2006.

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