The flight ground stop ordered across the United States by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) due to a serious technical fault in air traffic control communications systems has been lifted. The news was reported by the New York Times, citing the US aviation authority itself. The toll of the disruption remains heavy, however, with tens of thousands of passengers left stranded at airports.
The stoppage had affected the entire national territory, with knock-on effects on international connections as well. At the FAA’s request, all air traffic bound for the United States from countries belonging to Eurocontrol — the organization that coordinates flight management in European airspace — had been suspended.
The chaos is believed to have been caused by a malfunction in the infrastructure used for communications between air traffic control centers. According to President Donald Trump, the fault was not linked to either a cyberattack or the use of artificial intelligence.
As reported by Fox News, checks carried out found no evidence of any cyber intrusion. The problem is instead thought to stem from outdated and malfunctioning systems. No one, moreover, has claimed responsibility for any act of sabotage.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy provided further details, pointing to “switches and routers truly clogged with data” as the cause of the telecommunications problems that forced authorities to ground flights.
The secretary spoke of “tens of thousands of stranded passengers,” underlining the impact of the failure on the entire US airport system.
Duffy went on to ask Congress to allocate $50 billion to modernize air traffic control infrastructure, which he described as no longer adequate to handle current traffic volumes and safety requirements.
With the order now lifted, flight operations have been given the green light to resume, though the backlog of delays and cancellations caused by the stoppage has yet to be cleared.
