FAA outage: the United States grounded all its planes for five hours

Friday the 13th, the return. At 3:30 p.m. Washington time (9:30 p.m. in Paris), the Federal Aviation Administration prohibited all takeoffs on American territory “due to extraordinary circumstances and for security reasons.” More than 3,500 planes were in the air at the time. The decision comes two days after the Microsoft 365 outage which deprived millions of employees of their messaging. In total, two American critical infrastructures were on land in forty-eight hours.

The key points of this article:

Third country-wide flight ban in twenty-five years, after September 11, 2001 and January 2023.

More than 9,000 delays and 440 cancellations from 5 p.m., 600 aircraft diverted.

The Minister of Transport blames saturated routers on an aging network.

The DHS refuses to rule out the hypothesis of a computer attack.

FAA failure: five hours without a single takeoff

It all started from the Kansas City control center, which manages the skies above the heart of the country. The communication outage then spread to the 22 regional centers which guide planes between two airports. In any case, that’s what a United pilot explained to his passengers on the Los Angeles tarmac. The aircraft in flight were able to land. Those on the ground no longer moved. At 5 p.m., FlightAware already counted more than 9,000 delayed flights and 440 canceled, for 30,000 movements scheduled for the rest of the day. The Associated Press, for its part, recorded 600 diverted aircraft.

The initial order ran until 11 p.m. The FAA finally lifted it a little earlier, almost five hours after it was triggered, warning that delays and cancellations would continue on Saturday. International flights were handled on a “case by case” basis. A national ground stop, however, remains a rare event. The previous one dates from January 11, 2023, when the pilot notification system (NOTAM) failed. The one before dates back to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Saturated routers and an “incredibly old” network: the Duffy version

Transport Minister Sean Duffy gave his reading in the evening. Just after 3:30 p.m., the routers that connect the control centers were overwhelmed with data. They then began sending inconsistent information back to controllers. Its official cause can be summed up in two words: an “incredibly old” system. He didn't want to promise that it wouldn't happen again. Some air traffic controllers interviewed by CNN say they do not believe this explanation.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin was more specific on one point. For him, it was the addition of recent technologies to this old network that caused the breakdown. He therefore calls for a “complete overhaul” of the FAA’s systems. Investigators will take a close look at new artificial intelligence software being deployed nationally to spot incidents and suggest alternative routes. The Associated Press specifies that this tool runs from a single site near Washington and only sends recommendations to the centers. The Watcher Guru account puts the program at $875 million, an amount the FAA has not confirmed.

Cyberattack? “Nothing is certain,” responds DHS

Mullin first wanted to reassure. “It’s not another 9/11, it’s a telecommunications outage,” he told reporters, adding that there was “no reason to be afraid.” Then a question made the message falter. Can he say with certainty that this is not a computer attack? “There is nothing certain at the moment,” he replied. Donald Trump has been informed and his administration “is not ruling anything out at this stage,” according to NBC News live.

Microsoft, for its part, said its own global outage, still being resolved Friday, had no connection to the FAA's problems. Mullin confirmed. Two giant breakdowns, two different causes, the same lesson for those who have followed this sector for a long time: an infrastructure that depends on a single point ends up breaking at that precise location. During these five hours, the Bitcoin network continued to produce a block every ten minutes, without a center in Kansas City.