US blames system upgrade for longest nationwide FAA ground stop since 9/11

The top United States transportation official has said work being performed on an antiquated telecommunications system could be to blame for a rare, hours-long US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ground stop that halted all air traffic inside the country. At a news conference in Washington, DC, on Saturday, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spoke about routine maintenance that was performed on Friday to upgrade a router from copper to fibre at a “very remote location”.

Duffy said “contractor error or a faulty piece of equipment” caused the router in question to start flooding other ones in the country’s air traffic control system. When those connection issues caused disruption in radar feeds and communications between air traffic controllers and aeroplanes, Duffy said a ground stop was ordered.

The Transportation Department identified the contractor of Friday’s maintenance as L3Harris, a US-based aerospace and defence company that has been tasked with modernising the communications system for the FAA.