A nationwide ground stop on departures from US airports was lifted on Friday after a communications outage paralysed the air-traffic control system. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted the ground stop just before 4pm Eastern Time, though disruptions are expected to take days to resolve.
Sean Duffy, the US transportation secretary, and Markwayne Mullin, the head of homeland security, briefed reporters at the White House. They suggested the outage was related to the installation of new technology in an antiquated system, causing older routers to be "overloaded with data" and fail. The FAA had activated a new air traffic management tool, Smart, at all 22 US air route traffic control centres three days prior.
Secretary Mullin stated there was "zero evidence that this was a cyber-attack," adding that it "appears that this was mechanically driven." Democrats on the House homeland security committee have called for oversight, demanding the preservation of all documents and emails related to the incident.
Secretary Duffy requested $50bn in emergency funding from Congress to build a new air traffic control network, stating that the current "patchwork doesn't work."