In America, on Friday afternoon the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has banned all flights across the country. The FAA described this as a decision taken due to extraordinary circumstances and safety reasons. However, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told X that “there has been a communication issue at traffic control centers on all 22 air routes. Technicians are investigating.” According to CNN and People.com reports, this is a “rolling frequency outage” – that is, the frequency used to talk between the controller and the pilot is being cut off repeatedly. This is the first time flights across the country have been grounded since January 2023, when the FAA’s main computer system malfunctioned. Before that, this had happened after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. Situation after the flights were stopped… The stoppage of flights started from Chicago. According to reports, the ground stop was not suddenly imposed in the entire country. Earlier it was installed at Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports because there were problems in communication. When the problem spread to centers across the country, a nationwide ground stop was imposed at around 3:54 pm (1:24 am IST). It is written in the advisory of FAA – Ground stop will remain till 11:30 pm. But it is also written – till further orders. This means that there is no guarantee that the flights will start at 11:30. In the current situation, the flights which are in the air can land, they have not been called back. Flights that are on the ground cannot take off. Apart from this, international flights coming to America will be considered on a case-by-case basis. No deadline has been given yet for when flights will restart, which are being detected by the new artificial intelligence system. Mullin said they are investigating whether it is connected to a new artificial intelligence (AI) system being implemented across the country to help identify problems and reroute planes. However, the system operates from a single location near Washington DC and sends only recommendations to air traffic control centres. Since Congress approved $12.5 billion for the project last year, the government has been working to replace the aging technology used by air traffic controllers. In America, miles of old copper wiring has been replaced with fiber optic lines at airports and old radio systems are gradually being replaced. But there is still a lot of work left. Experts said – This happened in September too Aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo, who was previously a pilot for United Airlines, said – “This problem seems to be similar to the regional communication outage that happened in the Northeast in September, which stranded hundreds of flights. Only this time it has happened across the country. This may be related to old technology. If you can’t talk to the pilot, you have to stop the plane on the ground. Not in the air. Where you can’t even talk to them.”
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