Flights resume in U.S. after hours-long nationwide ground stop halts travel

Resumen detallado

All commercial flights were grounded for more than four hours, throwing the air travel system in the U.S. into chaos.

PHILADELPHIA — Plane departures across the U.S. were allowed to resume Friday night after the Federal Aviation Administration lifted a nationwide ground stop due to “extraordinary circumstances” caused by communications problems at regional air traffic control centres.

All commercial flights were grounded for more than four hours, throwing the nation’s air travel system into chaos in one of the most significant disruptions since January 2023, when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned, and the second since the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The initial FAA notice at just before 4 p.m. announcing the ground stop said it was being imposed “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.” An estimated 3,500 planes already in the air were ordered to land at the nearest available airport.

There was widespread confusion over the cause of the outage. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin initially said there were no indications it was the result of a “nefarious attack,” but did not immediately rule out a cyberattack, or a malfunction in the AI system that had been integrated into key FAA systems earlier this week.

“There’s nothing completely certain right now,” Mullin said, adding there are no “footprints” showing an attack and that it appears to be “mechanically driven,” adding that officials were still looking for the cause.

In a press conference shortly after the ground stop was lifted just before 8:20 p.m., Mullin and U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed the outage on an antiquated air traffic control system. Mullin said the introduction of new technology overwhelmed it. The system needs funding for a complete overhaul, he said, estimating a $50 billion price tag and blaming Congress for not providing the money.

“I don’t want to rule out that we didn’t have nefarious activity here,” said Duffy.

“This is what the leadership of President Trump looks like, by the organization and the team he’s put together.

“It was an old legacy…

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