Technology1 min read

US flight disruption to persist 'well into Sunday' as officials blame faulty router

By · Via Times of India · Published by Everything Blog

In short

The disruptions originated at a remote facility when telecommunications lines were being converted from older copper wiring to fiber-optic infrastructure. A hardware issue triggered massive data overload by generating more than 1,000 connection attempts every few seconds, disrupting radar and aircraft communications across 17 control centers. Officials are currently working to determine whether contractor error or a faulty router caused the breakdown. Although flight schedules were heavily impacted with over 6,150 cancellations on Saturday, the Federal Aviation Administration expects operations to largely normalize by late Sunday.

Key points

  • Modernization work by contractor L3Harris caused severe data overload that disrupted air…: Modernization work by contractor L3Harris caused severe data overload that disrupted air traffic control frequencies nationwide.
  • Federal officials are actively investigating whether contractor error or a faulty router…: Federal officials are actively investigating whether contractor error or a faulty router was the root cause of the breakdown.
  • Operations are stabilizing across the country, though about 30 percent of the airspace sy…: Operations are stabilizing across the country, though about 30 percent of the airspace system's legacy copper wiring still requires replacement.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

NEW DELHI: Air travel across the United States is expected to take until late Sunday to return to normal after a nationwide flight disruption caused by communication failures at air traffic control centres. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has traced the problem to maintenance work involving a telecommunications network and a potentially faulty router installed by its contractor, L3Harris, officials said on Saturday.

The disruption continued to affect thousands of passengers even after the FAA lifted its nationwide ground stop on Friday evening. As of 6:45 pm ET (23:45 GMT) on Saturday, airlines had cancelled more than 6,150 flights and delayed over 7,300, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware. More than 530 flights scheduled for Sunday had also been cancelled.

The disruption followed an even worse day on Friday, when airlines cancelled around 9,200 flights and delayed 7,500 after the FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop that halted nearly all departing flights for almost five hours.

FAA chief Bryan Bedford said he expected airline operations to largely return to normal by late Sunday. He apologised to passengers and said the system…

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