Reopening of airspace to air traffic in the United States

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the reopening of U.S. airspace after lifting a multi-hour order that had halted flights at all American airports. Duffy told reporters that “at 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time, we reopened the airspace,” attributing the glitches that caused widespread travel disruption to “outdated equipment.”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted the order grounding flights at U.S. airports after a more than four-hour suspension caused by communication system failures, which led to the cancellation of approximately 10,000 flights.

In a statement widely reported by local media, the FAA noted that some flights bound for Hawaii and other Pacific destinations received takeoff clearance, and flights in other states were allowed to resume operations following the hours-long suspension.

Meanwhile, CNN reported that sources in the U.S. aviation sector said the FAA informed airlines that the communication outages were caused by a malfunction in network routing equipment.

Sources predicted that major airlines might continue to suspend operations for the rest of the night as the fallout from the glitch, which affected the FAA’s air traffic management systems, persisted.

The network also quoted a security source stating that a comprehensive government response, involving security and intelligence agencies, had not yet revealed any indicators of a deliberate attack.

In a related development, U.S. President Donald Trump, in his first comments on the flight suspension, told Fox News that the problem did not appear to be caused by a cyberattack or artificial intelligence technologies.

Earlier, the FAA had announced the nationwide suspension of flights due to exceptional circumstances and safety concerns.

According to a source cited by the network, the outages across the country included air traffic control radar systems and the failure of radio frequencies.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Duffy explained that a communication issue was affecting all air traffic control centers. He added that the FAA was investigating the communication problem impacting airports.

For his part, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin confirmed that the communication failure, which caused the delay and cancellation of approximately 7,000 flights in the United States, was not comparable to the events of September 11. He clarified that the incident involved a communications service outage and was entirely different in nature.

Speaking to Fox News, Mullin said that restoring communications at airports and returning air traffic to normal could take some time, noting that President Trump had directed the provision of all necessary resources to address the malfunction.

He added that the priority was to restore communications and ensure the safe landing of all aircraft before working to return air traffic to normal operations, emphasizing that there was no reason for citizens to fear or worry about the safety of their traveling relatives.

He clarified that U.S. authorities were considering the possibility of a cyberattack as part of the scenarios under investigation but had not yet determined the cause of the outage, stressing that there were no indications of a deliberate cyberattack on airports.

He pointed out that initial reports ruled out a cyberattack as the cause of the disruption to air traffic at several U.S. airports.

He continued: “We are examining whether there is a link between the incident and artificial intelligence.”

In a separate development, Fox News reported that Amtrak, the national rail operator in the United States, experienced issues with its website and mobile application.