The Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide ground stop Thursday, halting all flight departures across the country after a rolling frequency outage struck air traffic control facilities. The FAA has not yet identified what triggered the disruption.
Transportation Secretary Mullin addressed the stoppage publicly, calling it a telecommunications outage and describing the situation as a crisis. He said the cause is still unknown but that officials have to assume something nefarious, such as hacking, may be involved as the investigation continues. He assured the public that all passengers are safe.
DC Examiner reporter Anna Giaritelli, FAA rolling frequency outage, spoke with a second FAA employee who explained the scope of the problem. That employee said the outage is hitting air traffic control centers, the facilities that track flights once they are airborne and monitor them all the way to their highest altitude.
As a result, controllers are rerouting planes already in the air to the nearest operating center that has not been affected by the outage. Flights on the ground, however, have been told to stay put under the ground stop order until the FAA can stabilize the situation.
It is not yet clear how many flights or airports are involved, or how long the ground stop will remain in effect. Officials have not publicly confirmed whether the disruption is the result of a cyberattack or a technical failure. What happens next depends on how quickly investigators can pinpoint the source of the outage and restore normal communications across the affected facilities.
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