US flight chaos traced to copper‑wire upgrade, says transport secretary

A nationwide ground stop that halted take‑offs for four hours on Friday was caused by a technical fault linked to a copper‑wire upgrade, the US transport secretary has confirmed.

Sean Duffy told a news conference that officials are investigating whether the problem stemmed from “incompetence” by the contractor L3Harris or a faulty router that flooded other air‑traffic‑control systems, prompting the safety‑driven shutdown.

The interruption, which began at 15:54 EST (19:54 GMT), was the longest such incident since the 11 September 2001 attacks. More than 15,000 flights were delayed or cancelled that day, affecting an estimated 1.5 million passengers, with 5,900 cancellations and 7,000 delays reported on Saturday.

L3Harris, the technology provider tasked with replacing the US’s ageing copper telecommunications network with fibre‑optic cable, said it had completed over 70 % of the work before the incident and is cooperating with the FAA’s investigation.

The Federal Aviation Administration, led by Bryan Bedford, said there was “zero evidence of anything nefarious” and no indication of a cyber‑attack or rogue AI involvement. The FAA expects the US flight schedule to normalise by the end of Sunday.

Transport secretary Duffy warned that further disruptions could occur unless Congress approves the $30.1 billion funding request for a broader air‑traffic‑control infrastructure upgrade.

Source: BBC News. Photo: Magda Ehlers / Pexels.