FAA telecom problems that triggered the ground stop were so alarming the White House situation room and national security apparatus went into action
During a press briefing on Saturday, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the White House situation room and the entire national security infrastructure were activated, noting that the FBI was also in facilities to investigate.
Key points
- We need L3Harris or whoever provided that router to us to do a better job.” An L3Harris spokesperson said the company has been modernizing the communications infrastructure for the National Airspace System in close coordination with the FAA.
- Along with its telecom partners and the FAA, L3Harris added that it has completed more than 70% of the conversion from legacy copper wires to a fiber optic system.
- Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said FBI Director Kash Patel, the director of national intelligence, and the Defense Department participated in a conference call because they were concerned there was a cyberattack from another country.
On Friday, the regulator ordered a nationwide ground stop for several hours, forcing airlines to delay and cancel thousands of flights, after a communications problem affecting air-traffic control was detected.
Additional details
- Was it the router or were they not doing great work for us at L3Harris?” He later pointed out that the company owns the legacy telecom network, while the department is working with “the greatest telecom companies in the world,” like be AT&T, Verizon, and Lumens to build a new architecture.
- And once the FAA isolated the location where the telecom problem originated and took it offline, then the system began functioning properly again.
- Because it disrupted some radar feeds, the FAA ordered the ground stop to ensure safety.
- It began when a contractor with L3Harris was doing routine maintenance at a remote FAA location to switch telecommunication lines from old copper wire to fiber optics, according to Duffy.
- The country is on edge as freezers and email go haywire, and the federal government wasn’t taking any chances either when the FAA saw a communications issue.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
Advertisement
Every article behind this summary — 1 article from 1 outlet
Get stories like this in your inbox.
Subscribe — it's freeOne free email at 6am — your topics, deduplicated, five minutes. No account, no paywall.