US reopens airspace, confirms no cyberattacks - Sarmad
The Homeland Security Secretary confirmed that no cyberattacks were behind the flight suspensions in the United States.
Translated by Qiyas from سرمد — Original source
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced today that it is now possible to resume takeoffs, following the lifting of a nationwide ban on all departing flights that the agency had imposed earlier “due to exceptional circumstances and safety concerns,” after it had previously reported serious problems in air traffic control communications.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated that there were no cyberattacks linked to the nationwide flight suspension and that the public was not exposed to any risk whatsoever.
Mayorkas had previously declared that there were no indications of a threat to the United States behind the decision.
He said, “There is no indication, so far, that this was a malicious attack against us; it is simply a communications outage,” adding that officials “are not ruling out any possibility at this stage.”
Shortly before the announcement, the FAA had halted air traffic in Chicago due to problems with air traffic control communications, according to Reuters news agency.
The FAA added, “All departing aircraft must remain grounded until further notice.” The agency clarified that international flights would be handled on a case-by-case basis.
For his part, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated that U.S. airspace had been “opened” to navigation, attributing the glitches that caused chaos and disrupted travel to “outdated equipment.”
Duffy had previously confirmed that the FAA’s decision was due to a communications problem affecting all air traffic control centers, adding that agency technicians were examining the issue.
This is the second nationwide order to halt all departing flights since the September 11, 2001, attacks. The other such order occurred in January 2023, when the agency suspended all domestic departing flights for less than two hours.
Last year, Congress approved $12.5 billion in funding to modernize the agency’s aging communications system.
On Friday, the FAA and the White House requested that Congress allocate an additional $30.1 billion to address other issues.
