In the United States, all flights were suspended for four hours due to a communication failure with air traffic controllers.
On November 13, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) banned flights from all airports in the country. The department explained this in terms of communication problems in air traffic control centers. The planes that were already in the sky were allowed to fly and land. The ban was in effect for about four hours, during which time more than 7,700 flights were canceled and more than 8,000 were delayed, affecting 1.5 million passengers. According to CNN, in 22 control centers both radars and radio frequencies stopped working at the same time.
The authorities do not confirm the cyber attack version. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no evidence of a hack and it was a failure of the FAA's telecommunications systems and not "a new 9/11". He also rejected the connection with the global failure of Microsoft, which was happening in those days. The reasons given vary. Mullin says new hardware and upgrades overwhelmed the old system. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy explains that the routers were overloaded with data and began to fail at 3:36 PM EST. According to CBS, the FAA's communications network rebooted and crashed after the update. The final conclusion will be given in the investigation.
We tested the AI version separately, because on the same day the FAA introduced a new air traffic control system based on it.
Trump, speaking to Fox News, said he did not believe in a cyber attack or the involvement of AI, blaming the cause on old equipment, parts of which have been working for about 55 years.
This is the third national landing of US flights ever. The first was after attacks on September 11, 2001, the second in January 2023 due to a failure of the pilot's warning system, when the flights lasted less than two hours. The current shutdown is the second longest after 2001.