WASHINGTON — There is no sign so far that a cyber attack caused the nationwide FAA ground stop Friday, the White House said, blaming an overloaded analog telecom system that left radar and communications unstable in air traffic centers across the country.
The message came from two of President Trump’s cabinet secretaries at a White House briefing. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin opened by saying there is no connection to Microsoft and, so far, no sign of a cyber attack. “There is actually no cyber attack,” Mullin said, adding the public was never in danger. Mullin also said FEMA activated its centers so passengers who need medication can get it, and the airports have a direct number to reach out for help.
Then Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy walked through what happened. The trouble started at 3:36 p.m., he said, when radar and communications became unstable in the centers and TRACONs across the country. The FAA issued a ground stop with more than 3,500 airplanes in the air; by the time Duffy spoke, fewer than 400 remained in the airspace as they landed safely.
Even with the airspace shut down, Duffy said, medevac flights, cargo carrying critical medicines and law enforcement movements were still allowed to fly.
From there Duffy turned to why it happened. The air traffic control system runs on TDM analog telecom, he said, and its switches and routers got overloaded with data and started giving inconsistent readings. “Our new IP switches did not go down. It’s the old hardware that went down,” Duffy said.
That left Duffy making the case for money. Past administrations gave the FAA 15 billion dollars over 25 years to fix the system, he said, and “barely anything was done.” President Trump asked for 12 and a half billion dollars in the “one big beautiful bill” as a down payment, and Duffy said the president has asked Congress for 30 billion dollars to finish building a brand new system. “It’s not red it’s not blue it’s not Democrat it’s not Republican it’s American,” Duffy said, asking Congress to fund it.
Duffy also pointed to the outages in Newark a year and a half ago as the same problem, and said many of the towers are almost 100 years old, with leaky roofs, air conditioning that doesn’t work and elevators that don’t work.
The ground stop was lifted Friday evening. But the damage was already done. By early Friday evening, more than 1,900 flights had been canceled and over 10,000 delayed, according to FlightAware, and in all more than 15,000 flights were delayed or canceled, leaving about 1.5 million passengers stranded.
The connecting hubs got hit hardest. At Chicago, Denver, Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth, passengers missed their connections and slept in concourses, with rebookings stretching into late Saturday and Sunday. In Atlanta, some travelers were told they might not rebook for a day or more.
Hotels filled up fast. At Detroit Metro, the Skyline Hotel lobby was packed with at least 50 people in line at 8:30 p.m., the Detroit Free Press reported, and the Wyndham Garden had a line too. Around Atlanta, rooms filled quickly and prices went up. Some travelers got cots or thin blankets in gate areas instead of hotel rooms, and airlines generally aren’t required to pay for hotels when the disruption comes from air traffic control. Change fees were waived — Delta issued a systemwide waiver and United a “Nationwide ATC Outage Travel Waiver” for Nov. 13 and 14.
© Old Town News Scottsdale — oldtownnews.us
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