Federal transportation officials say the next generation of the
nation’s air traffic control system is being designed to avoid the
kind of telecommunications breakdown that disrupted thousands of
flights this week. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Tuesday
that the planned architecture will include multiple communications
routes into FAA facilities instead of relying on one or two critical
connections.
The pledge follows Monday’s widespread aviation disruption, when a
failed telecommunications switch and an accidentally severed
fiber-optic line in New Jersey affected major airports in the
Northeast. About 9,500 flights were delayed or canceled, according to
Reuters, and more than 100 flights were diverted to other airports.
The FAA temporarily stopped arrivals at the three major New York-area
airports as well as airports serving Philadelphia, Boston and
Washington. The disruption lasted for hours and came as world leaders
were traveling to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.
Federal officials say the incident highlighted weaknesses in an air
traffic network that still depends in places on aging technology.
Congress approved $12.5 billion for modernization last year, while the
projected cost of telecommunications upgrades has risen to about $5.91
billion.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford has said outdated copper
telecommunications wiring is expected to be fully replaced by
September 2027. The broader modernization effort is intended to create
more redundancy so that damage to one cable, switch or route does not
produce a cascading shutdown.
Operations were largely back to normal Tuesday, but the outage has
added urgency to the modernization debate in Washington.
Transportation officials say the goal is not only to replace old
equipment, but to build a system capable of continuing to operate when
individual components fail.
