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The White House announced that there is no indication of a cyber-attack linked to the nationwide ground stop affecting all U.S. airports. Markwayne Mullin, Secretary of Homeland Security, stated from outside the White House that the issue appears to be a telecommunications outage. He mentioned that he had discussed the situation with President Trump. Mullin warned that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is still working to manage some flights, and it will "take some time" for operations to return to normal.
The FAA halted departing flights nationwide on Friday due to communications issues affecting multiple air traffic control centers, as reported by CNBC. The agency described the situation as a "temporary telecommunications outage" and implemented the ground stop out of "an abundance of caution."
According to VTDigger, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed that the communications issue is impacting 22 regional air traffic control centers. The FAA is investigating the cause, and there is no timeline for when flights will resume.
The FAA's new artificial intelligence system, SMART, is being examined as a possible factor in the outage, according to GeekWire. Mullin stated that the Department of Homeland Security is investigating the potential link through its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
Mullin emphasized that this situation is not akin to the events of September 11, 2001, and reassured the public that "everybody's safe." The FAA noted that flights already in the air would continue, and inbound international flights would be managed on a case-by-case basis.