Flights resume across US: Trump doubts system failure was caused by cyberattack or AI

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has lifted its nationwide halt to flight departures, while President Donald Trump has blamed the widespread system failure that prompted the halt on outdated FAA equipment and said he does not believe it was caused by a cyberattack or artificial intelligence.

Source: Axios; Fox News, citing a journalist who spoke to Trump by phone

Quote from the journalist: "He [Trump] says it does not seem like this is a cyberattack or AI or anything like that. I asked him a couple different ways, and he said it doesn't seem like that, and that is the first thing that they always look for."

"He said instead, this seems to be a situation where there's a bunch of old broken stuff in the infrastructure that the FAA relies on to keep planes in the sky. He said some of this is 55-year-old equipment that needs to keep working, keep running."

Details: US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also said the flight grounding had been ordered after outdated air traffic control communications equipment became overloaded with data and failed.

Duffy therefore urged Congress to increase funding to modernise the air traffic control system. Trump said replacing the outdated equipment had already been discussed with Congress, but the necessary changes had yet to be implemented.

The exact cause of the widespread system failure remains unknown and will be determined by an investigation. Despite the flight ban being lifted, many flights continue to be delayed, with major disruption persisting at US airports.

Background:

• On 13 November, all flight departures across the US were suspended due to "extraordinary circumstances and reasons for safety".
• The FAA stated that the nationwide flight ban had been ordered because the system failure affected several en-route air traffic control centres simultaneously.
• Reuters noted that this was only the second time all flight departures had been suspended nationwide in the US since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.
• US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin later said the nationwide suspension of flights had been caused by a telecommunications failure rather than a terrorist threat similar to the 11 September attacks.

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