Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
WASHINGTON / FOREIGN & TRANSPORT – The United States plunged into air travel chaos with thousands of flights cancelled and tens of thousands of passengers stranded after control communication systems were judged “outdated” and “overloaded”. The nationwide take-off ban imposed “due to extraordinary circumstances” by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) — triggered shortly after 4pm local time on Friday, midnight in Italy — reignited fears of dramatic scenarios for nearly an hour, evoking the 2023 precedent and, above all, the shutdown after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks.
To dispel doubts about the cause of the emergency, the Homeland Security secretary (DHS) Markwayne Mullin spoke directly from the White House West Wing, ruling out any hostile action:
“There is no indication this was a deliberate attack: so far, it is only a telecommunications outage. We are not under attack, there is no danger. This is not another 9/11.”
[Image: Control tower and planes stationary on the runway at a US airport]
Technical diagnosis and $50 billion request to Congress
About four hours after the shutdown began — almost simultaneously with its lifting — the Transportation secretary Sean Duffy clarified the technical causes at a press conference with Mullin, blaming the paralysis on “truly data-clogged switches and routers”. According to the Transportation secretary, recent technological upgrades had ended up overloading the FAA’s existing infrastructure until it collapsed.
Facing what he called a “real emergency”, Duffy issued an urgent appeal to the US Parliament:
- Funding requested: the Transportation secretary urged Congress to allocate $50 billion for an extraordinary plan to modernise air traffic control networks.
- Risk of further failures: asked whether the episode could recur, Duffy did not hide the seriousness of the structural situation, admitting that the system “will keep breaking down” without radical intervention.
- Slow return to normal: full operations at US airports, from New York to Los Angeles, “will be slow” because of the huge number of cancelled connections.
Cyber attack ruled out, Donald Trump weighs in
During the White House briefing, Mullin reiterated that “there was never any risk to life, no flight was ever at risk”, denying any link between the airport systems blackout and a cyber attack, the Microsoft Outlook malfunctions or actions related to artificial intelligence.
President Donald Trump, though not personally attending the press conference, was kept constantly updated on the crisis and told Fox News he believed the air travel chaos was directly linked to “obsolete infrastructure”. When asked why the White House leader was absent from the journalists, the Homeland Security secretary replied by stressing the tycoon’s full confidence in his government team and in the line set for the country’s infrastructure revival.
