Mysterious System Failure Grounds US Flights, Stranding Thousands

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) resumed flight operations nationwide late Friday night into Saturday, following hours of airport chaos caused by an unprecedented grounding of all takeoffs. Israel time, as concerns lingered about the ongoing impact on flight schedules and passenger movement. Reports indicate that failures in radio communication frequencies and radar systems disrupted air traffic control centers and airport facilities. U.S. Secretary of Transportation the U.S. Secretary of Transportation stated at a White House press conference that routers and switches experienced a massive data surge, leading to their failure. He clarified that communication and radar systems did not completely shut down but received inconsistent data, describing the incident as a glitch in an aging network. Secretary of Transportation added that a full return to operational capacity would take time, without specifying the cause of the intense data flow. U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas assured that travelers were not at risk and that relevant agencies were working to resolve the issue. Regarding the possibility of a cyberattack, Mayorkas confirmed investigations were ongoing and the possibility had not been ruled out, but stressed there was no connection to disruptions in Microsoft systems. CNN, citing preliminary investigation findings, reported that the outage was not linked to a cyberattack. airports lasted approximately five hours, during which over 10,000 flights experienced delays and nearly 5,000 were canceled, including flights bound for Israel. It is estimated that over one million passengers were preparing to travel during the disruption period. Despite the lifting of the takeoff ban, airlines continue to face challenges in reorganizing flight schedules, and delays are expected to persist until air traffic returns to normal. Secretary warned that tens of thousands of travelers might have to spend the night in airports and urged Congress to approve emergency funding for air traffic control system upgrades, which he estimated would cost around $50 billion. This nationwide flight grounding is a rare event, marking only the third time in U.S. history that flights have been widely halted.