Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday that a faulty router might have caused the communications outage that prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a nationwide ground stop Friday, disrupting thousands of flights and stranding travelers.
Investigators have not yet determined the exact cause of the router failure, including whether it stemmed from human error, an installation mistake or a problem with the equipment itself.
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Duffy said the outage occurred during routine FAA telecommunications maintenance at a remote facility, where aging copper communications lines were being replaced with fiber-optic service. The work was being performed by L3Harris, the FAA's longtime telecommunications contractor, as part of a broader modernization effort.
"At least one of our remote FAA locations, a contractor was doing routine maintenance to switch telecommunication lines from old copper wire, and they were bringing it over to fiber," Duffy said. "What we're working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error or installer error from L3 Harris, or did they install a faulty router."
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He said the copper line being replaced was nearing the end of its service life and scheduled for discontinuation, making the transition from analog to digital communications necessary.
During the upgrade, Duffy said, a router began flooding the FAA network with traffic, generating more than 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds.
Officials do not believe the outage was caused by a cyberattack or other malicious activity, Duffy said. He added that the incident highlighted vulnerabilities in the FAA's aging telecommunications infrastructure and the challenges of upgrading critical systems while keeping the nation's airspace operating safely.
"We see zero evidence of anything nefarious and zero evidence of anything AI-related," FAA administration Bryan Bedford told reporters.
L3 Harris released a statement, saying it will participate in the Transportation Department's probe.
"L3Harris has been modernizing the communications infrastructure supporting the National Airspace System in close coordination with the FAA," the company said. "With safety and reliability as our highest priorities, L3Harris, together with its telco partners and the FAA, has completed more than 70% of the planned airspace communications conversion from legacy copper wires to a fiber optic system. We are supporting the FAA in its investigation to understand the conditions that led to the Nov. 13 ground stop of our nation’s air travel."
