FAA ground stop caused by copper wire replacement work

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated at a press conference today that the nationwide ground stop imposed by the FAA on Friday stemmed from efforts to replace aging copper wire with fiber optic cabling at a “remote FAA facility.” The secretary described the project as “routine maintenance” instead of a significant modernisation initiative. He explained to the press that the equipment was “such an old wire that it was being discontinued, meaning that line was going to get shut down,” which required the upgrade.

According to Secretary Duffy, the precise origin of the failure remains uncertain. He suggested that potential causes included defective hardware, a misconfigured router, or “incompetence” by the contractor L3Harris. The issue resulted in a newly installed router “flooding” other routers within the Air Traffic Control system. Duffy noted that there were “over 1,000 connection attempts every 4 to 5 seconds,” which disrupted communication with aircraft and radar feeds.

During the briefing, Secretary Duffy urged Congress to provide further funding for the modernisation of the Air Traffic Control system while highlighting the progress already achieved by the FAA. “We are building, we are building safely, but we are building fast,” he remarked, adding that Congress had provided only a “partial payment” to finish the required work.