FAA outage disrupts over 20,000 US flights; router blamed
A nearly five-hour shutdown of the US aviation system disrupted over 20,000 flights. Officials say a faulty router caused a data overload on an outdated FAA communication system. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy ruled out a cyberattack and warned of possible further disruptions.
A massive, nearly five-hour shutdown of the US aviation system that has disrupted more than 20,000 flights since Friday may have been the fault of a single router installed by government contractor L3Harris, government officials said Saturday. The incident is the latest example of the aging US air traffic control telecom system and the struggles to replace it while keeping old communications working. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Friday L3Harris was conducting routine maintenance to switch telecommunication lines from old copper wire to fiber at at least one remote location. Officials told Reuters there may have been problems with routers installed in both 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?" Duffy said. L3Harris said it took the issue seriously and was supporting the FAA investigation. The FAA spends $1 billion annually to maintain its old copper wire system and is racing to replace it with fiber. The issue began overloading communications at 17 of the FAA's 22 en route centers, prompting a nationwide ground stop. Duffy said the new routers started flooding other routers with over 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds. The routers being replaced are about 25 years old and were supposed to be replaced in 2006. The FAA got $12.5 billion to upgrade its aging system from Congress and Duffy has asked for $50 billion more.