The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced on November 10 that it would expand the deployment of the artificial intelligence air traffic management system SMART to 22 air traffic control centers across the United States. Unexpectedly, a major accident occurred three days later that suspended flights across the country. The FAA ordered at 3:54 pm Eastern Time on the 13th (4:54 am on the 14th Taiwan time) that due to a failure in the air traffic control communication system, all flights that have not yet taken off must stay on the ground, while aircraft already in the air can continue to land. Since the new AI system has just completed nationwide deployment, the timing of the two incidents has attracted attention from the outside world, but officials have not yet confirmed that the grounding is directly related to SMART.
SMART's full name is Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories. It was developed with the participation of the American technology company Air Space Intelligence. It mainly assists the FAA in analyzing flight traffic and adjusting flight routes. This cloud system integrates about 200 types of data, including flight location, weather, route planning and air traffic control personnel allocation, uses AI to predict which airspace may be congested, and then makes suggestions for adjusting flight schedules and flight routes. However, SMART is not an automatic air traffic control system that directly controls the aircraft. Recommendations generated by AI must first be confirmed by FAA professionals in Washington, and then handed over to local air traffic control units to decide whether to adopt them. Air traffic control rights are still in the hands of personnel.
The FAA first tested SMART in the airspace around Washington, D.C., as early as September 21. Officials claimed that the system had assisted 180 flights in adjusting their routes, saving an average of about 10 minutes of flight time and nearly 80 gallons of fuel per flight. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy listed this technology as an important measure to modernize the U.S. air traffic control system at the time. However, the import process has also been questioned. The union representing more than 15,000 air traffic controllers across the United States said it was not involved in the design, testing and deployment of SMART. Some members of Congress have also asked the FAA to suspend the expansion of use and clarify system testing and safety supervision procedures.
The grounding incident on the 13th caused massive chaos at airports across the United States. According to statistics from flight tracking platform FlightAware quoted by Reuters, more than 1,000 flights have been canceled and nearly 10,000 have been delayed since the accident. Even some flights from Canada and Europe have been affected. The FAA stated that the failure involved communication equipment at multiple air traffic control centers, so it was decided to stop new flight departures based on flight safety, and international flights would be handled on a case-by-case basis. This is also the second time that the United States has implemented nationwide grounding measures since the September 11th incident in 2001 and following the air traffic control computer system failure in 2023.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said that there is currently no indication that the incident involved a malicious network attack. It was initially confirmed to be an abnormality in the communication system, but the investigation has not yet concluded. Regarding whether SMART may be related to the malfunction, he admitted that no possibility can be ruled out at this stage, and relevant units are conducting further inspections. On the other hand, Air Space Intelligence has publicly denied that the grounding was not caused by SMART, any of its products, or the company's system integration with the FAA. The New York Post also quoted sources who speculated that the failure may be related to a recent software upgrade, but there is no technical evidence sufficient to confirm the cause.
The accident also exposed once again long-standing problems with the U.S. air traffic control infrastructure. The FAA has been promoting the updating of communication equipment, flight data processing and air traffic control systems in recent years, and recently announced that it will phase out disk equipment still in use in more than 400 facilities by the end of 2028. The U.S. government has previously obtained US$12.5 billion to modernize air traffic control, and on the 13th it asked Congress for an additional US$30.1 billion in budget. As for whether SMART was involved in this communication interruption, we still have to wait for the FAA to announce the results of the failure investigation before further clarification can be made.
