A massive, nearly five-hour shutdown of the US aviation system that has disrupted more than 20,000 flights since Friday may have been the fault of a single router installed by government contractor L3Harris, government officials said Saturday.
The incident is the latest painful example of the aging US air traffic control telecom system and the struggles to replace systems while keeping the old communications working.
The FAA’s aging telecom systems in recent years have failed after errant fiber cuts, accidental deletion of files and a strong chemical smell caused by a melted component. The system will fail again until it is properly upgraded, officials said.
“This was an FAA system that didn’t meet the moment,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday.
Duffy said on Friday L3Harris was conducting routine maintenance to switch telecommunication lines from old copper wire to fiber at at least one remote location. Officials told Reuters there may have been problems with routers installed in both Arkansas and Texas.
“We’re working to determine whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error or installer error from L3Harris, or did they install a faulty router? We haven’t determined what the fault was,” Duffy said.
L3Harris said it took the issue seriously and was “supporting the FAA in its investigation to understand the conditions that led to the Nov. 13 ground stop of our nation’s air travel.”
L3 noted it has completed more than 70% of the planned airspace communications conversion from legacy copper wires to a fiber-optic system.
