A routine technology upgrade may have triggered one of the biggest disruptions to US air travel in decades, after a router installed by government contractor L3Harris potentially caused a communications failure that forced the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to halt nearly all departing flights across the country.
\n\nThe nationwide ground stop on Friday, November 13, lasted almost five hours and disrupted more than 20,000 flights through cancellations and delays.
\n\nAlthough the FAA lifted the restriction later that evening, the impact continued into the weekend, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded and airlines struggling to restore their schedules.
\n\nBy Saturday evening, airlines had cancelled more than 6,150 flights and delayed over 7,300, according to FlightAware. This followed approximately 9,200 cancellations and 7,500 delays on Friday.
\n\nThe FAA expected operations to return largely to normal only by late Sunday.
\n\nWhat makes the incident particularly significant is that investigators are looking at a seemingly small piece of networking equipment installed as part of an effort to modernise America's ageing air traffic control infrastructure.
\n\nTransportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the problem was linked to routine maintenance being carried out by L3Harris, which is working on replacing old copper telecommunications lines with fibre-optic infrastructure.
Original source: https://www.cnbctv18.com/technology/
