US Lifts Airport Ground Stop After Air Traffic Control Equipment Failure

The United States has lifted an hours-long ground stop at airports across the country after officials attributed the disruption to ageing air traffic control equipment rather than a cyberattack or the global Microsoft outage.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced at a late-night briefing at the White House on Friday that US airspace had reopened, but warned that it would take time for flight operations to return to normal.

“At 8:15 tonight Eastern Time, we’ve opened up the airspace,” Duffy said. “Now does that mean every flight is going to fly right now? It’s going to be slow.”

Ageing equipment blamed for disruption

Duffy said the disruption occurred after switches and routers in the air traffic control system became overloaded with data and failed.

“Our switches, our routers actually got overloaded with data, and they went down,” he said, attributing the failure to outdated hardware.

The incident came a day after Duffy and the White House formally asked Congress for $30bn to upgrade and modernise the US Air Traffic Control System.

He used the disruption to highlight the need for investment in the country's aviation infrastructure, asking Americans whether they wanted Congress to provide the funding.

Despite the technical failure, Duffy insisted that it remained safe for Americans to fly.

Officials rule out Microsoft link

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin dismissed speculation that the disruption was caused by a coordinated cyberattack or was connected to the Microsoft outage that affected services worldwide.

“Welcome to Friday the 13th, right? You know, I want to make sure everybody understands that there is no connection between this and Microsoft. I know a lot of people are making that jump,” Mullin said.

He also said there was no evidence of a cyberattack, noting that security agencies had not detected any indications of responsibility or unusual activity.

“When we start looking at cyber threats, cyber attacks, typically some people are going to raise their hand up and say, ‘Hey, we did that.’ There’s no chatter. We haven’t seen any footprints,” he added.

However, Mullin said US security and law enforcement agencies were continuing their investigations and had not ruled anything out.

White House defends Trump's response

The two officials also defended President Donald Trump, who had not publicly commented on the airport disruption about five hours after it began.

Mullin said the President had been briefed and was involved in the government's response.

“President Trump immediately had people in his office,” he said. “We were communicating.”

AFP