The Federal Aviation Administration stopped every departing flight in the country on Friday afternoon after a telecommunications outage hit the air traffic control centers that guide planes across the U.S. The nationwide ground stop started at 3:54 p.m. ET and airspace didn’t reopen until 8:15 p.m., according to Al Jazeera. That made it the longest ground stop in 25 years.
The numbers are wild. More than 4,700 flights were canceled and 10,000 delayed on Friday, with another 700 already canceled for Saturday, per FlightRadar24. Flightradar24 also counted 4,042 planes in the air headed to U.S. airports when the order came down. Those flights were allowed to land.
What Caused It
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said switches and routers got overloaded with data and went down, and he pointed straight at the age of the system. “We use 1980s little copper lines,” Duffy said. Officials also admitted that new technology being added to the system overloaded older parts of it. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no cyberattack and the public was never in danger.
A Government Accountability Office report back in September had already warned about aging copper cables from the 1960s and the risk of disruptions like this one. Duffy is now calling for $50 billion in air traffic control upgrades, ABC News reports.
The IAHHM Take
If you were stuck at RDU, CLT or anywhere else Friday night, you already know it wasn’t just a news story. It hit college football teams scrambling to get to Saturday games, folks heading home for the weekend, and anybody trying to catch CIAA Championship Weekend in Durham (see our NC Weekend Guide).
The bigger issue is timing. Thanksgiving travel starts in less than two weeks. Duffy says operations should be back up by then, and aviation experts say a full reset could take more than a day as airlines reshuffle planes and crews. If you’re flying soon, check your flight status directly with your airline before you leave the house.
Real talk: are you still getting on a plane for Thanksgiving, or is this the year you drive?
Sources: Al Jazeera, ABC News, Flightradar24
