Total flight stoppage in the US

The federal aviation authority in the USA, FAA, announces at 22:00 on Friday, Swedish time, that all flights scheduled to take off must remain on the ground. The reason for the stop was quickly stated to be problems with communication between the air traffic control tower and radar.

By the time the flight ban was lifted more than four hours later, at 2:30 a.m., more than 10,000 flights had been delayed in total and 5,000 had been canceled, NBC News reports.

No signs of a cyber attack

Markwayne Mullin, director of the Department of Homeland Security, says during a press briefing outside the White House that there are no signs that this is an attack on the United States.

- There is nothing to indicate that, but we are investigating it, says Mullin.

Instead, it is about old hardware, and an air traffic control system that became overloaded, according to Transport Minister Sean Duffy.

- It was a problem with the old network that led to the interruption, he says.

Unusual with a total stop

It is the second total shutdown of air traffic in the United States since the September 11 attacks in 2001. In January 2023, domestic traffic was completely stopped for two hours.

Last year, Congress decided to allocate $12.5 billion to fix the FAA's outdated communications system - and as recently as this week, the White House asked for an additional $30 billion to upgrade the systems, Reuters reports.