FAA Clears SMART AI Tool in Ground Stop; Router Blamed

A four-hour nationwide halt, the longest since 9/11

The FAA halted departures nationwide Friday afternoon for more than four hours after instability appeared in radar and communications systems at 3:36 p.m. ET, according to sources in the pack.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said old routers on the air traffic control network became overloaded and started producing inconsistent data, forcing a systemwide shutdown as a safety precaution. The FAA lifted the stop around 8:30 p.m.

ET, and roughly 12,000 flights could not be completed Friday — about 9,000 commercial and 3,000 private, per FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford. Airlines canceled thousands more Saturday, with Bedford expecting 4,000 to 5,000 of roughly 41,000 flights to be scrubbed and full recovery by Sunday night.

Why builders should care: the AI tool landed in the crosshairs

The outage became an AI story because of timing: the FAA began its nationwide rollout of SMART, a new $875 million AI tool from Air Space Intelligence, this same week to help controllers manage traffic.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said investigators would look at whether there was any link to the rollout, and questions about AI swirled online within hours.

For practitioners, the episode is a case study in how a visible AI deployment becomes the default suspect the moment legacy infrastructure fails — even when the new system operates out of one location near Washington and only sends recommendations to control centers.

The evidence: 'zero evidence of anything AI related'

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said Saturday that officials found 'zero evidence of anything nefarious and zero evidence of anything AI related,' calling it plainly an equipment issue, per Yahoo. Air Space Intelligence stated the ground stop 'is not based on or a result of the SMART system.'

Duffy traced the failure to L3Harris contractor work switching telecom lines from copper to fiber at a remote FAA site: a router began flooding the rest of the system with over 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds.

Officials have not determined whether the router was faulty or misconfigured, and Duffy said they are checking for 'incompetence.' L3Harris has not responded to Yahoo News' request for comment.

A 2009 precedent, on paper logs and one telephony network

The failure mode is not new. According to Yahoo, a Transportation Department inspector general review found that in 2009 a Harris Corp. technician — L3Harris' predecessor — misconfigured a router during a fiber migration, disrupting 129 air traffic facilities.

A 2023 FAA-commissioned safety review called the network obsolete, CBS News reported via Yahoo. Bedford added that maintenance on the network is logged on paper, forcing officials to search paper records to establish who was working where.

He also revealed a single point of architectural fragility: 'We have one federal telephony infrastructure... We don't have two, but one,' so backup channels all run over the same network.

Notably, Duffy said centers on modern digital IP systems did not experience the failures.

The stakes: a $50 billion ask before Thanksgiving travel

The disruption rippled internationally, with U.S.-bound departures canceled or delayed from Heathrow, Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt and Incheon, per International Business Times Australia.

Congress approved $12.5 billion last year to begin replacing the legacy systems, and Duffy said President Trump has asked for $30 billion more while he personally wants $50 billion — Trump declared the failures 'a national emergency,' per USA Today.

Bedford said the router swap was routine maintenance, not part of that modernization effort.

What comes next: investigations, refunds and reevaluation

Recovery continues into the weekend as airlines reposition planes and crews that ended Friday out of place.

Bedford said airlines are 'waiving all of their terms and conditions' so affected travelers will be rebooked or refunded, though travelers whose flights are canceled are owed a refund if they choose not to fly.

Politically, Sen. Tammy Duckworth called for an investigation, Sen. Richard Blumenthal demanded a 'prompt, penetrating investigation,' and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called on Duffy to resign, per Yahoo and IBTimes Australia.

Duffy said the FAA will 'reevaluate' doing network work during the day, and warned: 'You will have more of them' without new funding.

Sources

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