Engineers were on their way to São Paulo International Airport, in Guarulhos, when their flight was diverted due to bad weather and the new trip was affected on Friday (13) by the suspension of takeoffs ordered by the American aviation authority.
By Paola Patriarca, g1 SP
Five Brazilian engineers stranded in the United States managed to fly to New York. They plan to return to Brazil on Monday (16), after flights resume.
The group traveled for work and had their original flight diverted on Thursday (12). On Friday (13), they faced cancellations due to the nationwide suspension of takeoffs.
US Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, reported this Saturday (14) that a failure to replace copper cables caused the shutdown on Friday (13).
The investigation focuses on possible human error or faulty equipment at the company L3Harris. Duffy ruled out a cyber attack or relationship with the new artificial intelligence system.
Group of five AI engineers are stranded at an airport in the USA after flights were suspended — Photo: David Mannoel/Personal Archive
The five Brazilian engineers who were stranded at Cincinnati airport, in Ohio, in the United States, managed to get a new flight after the resumption of air operations in the country.
According to David Mannoel Lopes Rocha, 28 years old, one of the passengers, the group embarked for New York and should remain in the city for two days before continuing their journey back to Brazil, on Monday (16).
"We got a flight to New York. We're going to spend a couple of days there and we're going back to Brazil. An employee from Delta company spent up to 3 hours helping us, outside of her working hours", said David.
The Brazilians were in the United States for work, where they participated in an artificial intelligence event in San Francisco, California.
The return to Brazil was initially scheduled for Thursday (12), but the flight had to be diverted to Ohio after the pilot was unable to land in New York due to weather conditions.
On Friday (13), the group again had difficulty boarding due to the nationwide suspension of takeoffs determined by the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The measure caused delays and cancellations at airports across the country.
According to David, during the suspension, airport and airline employees were unable to explain to passengers what was happening.
"The flight delay started to get longer and people started saying that they didn't know what was happening. The feedback was that they didn't know what was happening, but that no plane could take off", he reported.
Still on Friday, David described that the scenario was tense at the terminal, with long queues and passengers trying to resolve problems with the airlines.
"The atmosphere here is tense. Lots of long queues, passengers trying to resolve problems and people canceling flights. Among them, there are people dressed as Disney characters, who were on their way to Orlando. Everyone is tense," he said on Friday to g1.
Replacing copper cables with fiber optics
The Secretary of Transport of the United States, Sean Duffy, stated this Saturday (14) that a failure during the replacement of copper cables with fiber optics caused takeoffs across the country to be stopped for around four hours on Friday (13). The statement was made during a press conference at the headquarters of the US Department of Transportation.
According to Duffy, the problem occurred during maintenance work at a remote Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) facility. The government is investigating whether the failure was caused by human error or faulty equipment.
"What we are trying to determine now is whether there was human error by L3Harris or whether defective equipment was installed," said the secretary.
L3Harris is an American technology and defense company responsible for the telecommunications network used in US air traffic control. The company has worked with the FAA for more than two decades.
During maintenance, a router presented problems and started causing instability in other equipment on the network. According to Duffy, the system registered more than a thousand connection attempts every four or five seconds.
The failure compromised communication between controllers and aircraft, in addition to receiving information from radars. Given the problems, the FAA ordered the suspension of takeoffs for safety reasons.
The secretary explained that the systems returned to operation after the isolation of the maintenance service. He also stated that, so far, there is no evidence of a cyber attack.
Duffy also ruled out that the stoppage was caused by SMART, a new artificial intelligence system used by the FAA to assist in air traffic management.
The tool was recently implemented in 22 control centers in the United States, which raised questions about a possible relationship with the failure. According to the secretary, however, the problem occurred in the old telecommunications infrastructure, with no connection to the new system.
