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US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Saturday (local time) dismissed the possibility of a cyberattack behind the air traffic control communication outage that triggered a nationwide ground stop across US airports, while Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford said the agency had found no evidence of malicious activity or any artificial intelligence-related involvement in the disruption.
Addressing a news conference here, Duffy said the department did not believe the outage was caused by a cyberattack or an attack by a foreign nation, as questions mounted over the disruption that affected aviation operations across the country on Friday. "A lot of questions came in yesterday, was, was this a, a cyberattack? Did some foreign nation attack this network? And the answer to that is we dont believe so," Duffy said. Explaining the restoration of services, the Transportation Secretary said the systems came back online after the department isolated the work being carried out at a remote location. "Once we were able to isolate the work that was being done at this remote location, all of our systems came back online. This was an FAA system that didnt meet, didnt meet the moment," he said. Meanwhile, Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford said the outage was caused by an equipment error, adding that the agency had found no evidence suggesting deliberate interference or an AI-related issue. "We see zero evidence of anything nefarious and zero evidence of anything AI-related," Bedford said during a news conference on Saturday. Bedford, however, said the precise technical reason behind the disruption was yet to be established. Echoing Duffy's remarks, he said the issue could have stemmed from a "faulty installation", "faulty configuration", or a flawed piece of router technology. The FAA will release its root cause analysis once it becomes available, Bedford said. The disruption led to a nationwide ground stop after a telecommunications outage affected air traffic control communications, triggering widespread flight delays and cancellations. The FAA subsequently lifted the ground stop. According to flight data tracker FlightAware, more than 5,000 flights within, into or out of the United States were cancelled on Saturday. As of 2:30 p.m. ET, Delta Air Lines had cancelled 23 per cent of its scheduled flights, while United Airlines reported cancellations of 24 per cent. American Airlines cancelled 26 per cent of its flights, and Southwest Airlines reported 15 per cent cancellations, CNN reported. Amid the disruption, Duffy also renewed his call for increased funding for the Transportation Department, saying the department had been seeking greater financial support from the US Congress for years. "Ive asked for a lot of money now," Duffy said at the news conference, adding, "The Congress gave me a partial payment. They gave me USD 12.5 billion." Linking the incident to the need for further investment in aviation infrastructure, Duffy urged lawmakers to step up funding to improve the country's aviation system. "I think this is a sign for them to lean in," Duffy said, referring to Friday's nationwide ground stop. "Lets make the investments and look forward to a brighter future in aviation, a safer future, and a more efficient future in aviation," he added. Amid the chaos, US President Donald Trump was receiving "constant updates" on the air travel situation following Friday's widespread air traffic control communication outages and the subsequent FAA ground stop, a White House official said, CNN reported. Trump, however, had not made any public comments on the aviation disruption or posted about it on Truth Social. (ANI)
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