Cable replacement blamed for ground stop across US airspace
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said cable maintenance by a contractor may have caused Friday's nationwide flight grounding.
A major disruption to US air traffic on Friday may have been caused by routine maintenance work, according to US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, Duffy stated that efforts by contractor L3Harris to replace legacy copper cables could have triggered the air traffic control systems failure.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) halted all domestic departures for over four hours on Friday evening, citing safety concerns and extraordinary circumstances. While limited departures resumed earlier in select locations like San Francisco, the nationwide ground stop was officially lifted early Saturday morning. The outage resulted in thousands of flight cancellations and left more than 15,000 flights delayed across the United States. Authorities continue to investigate the technical failure.
Sources: Aftenposten, Dagens Næringsliv (DN), NRK, VG (Verdens Gang)