A major outage in the US air traffic control system occurred during an upgrade of its communications network. Work to replace copper cable with fiber-optic cable caused a router malfunction, which overloaded part of the data transmission system connecting air traffic controllers and aircraft.
Ukrinform reports this, citing the BBC.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the nationwide aviation shutdown in the United States, which resulted in thousands of flight cancellations, was caused by a problem following work to upgrade the copper wiring.
At a press conference, Duffy said the US government was trying to determine whether the problem had been caused by “incompetence” on the part of the company carrying out the upgrade or by faulty equipment.
The US government does not believe the incident resulted from a cyberattack, although the investigation is still ongoing, Duffy said.
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According to him, maintenance work to replace copper wiring with fiber-optic cable was carried out by a contractor called L3Harris, a technology services provider.
He added that the United States currently has “an incredibly old telecommunications system.”
“It was such an old wire that it was being discontinued,” he said.
The transportation secretary explained that the router being worked on began overloading other air traffic control systems and causing communication problems with aircraft. This forced the US government to close the airspace for safety reasons.
Brian Bedford, head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), said at the same press conference: “We see zero evidence of anything nefarious, and zero evidence of anything AI related.”
The aviation shutdown that occurred yesterday was the longest incident of its kind since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Disruptions to air traffic are expected to continue for several days.
As Ukrinform previously reported, the FAA imposed a nationwide ground stop on all aircraft departures due to an emergency.
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