Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed outdated routers and decades-old technology for Friday’s nationwide Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ground stop, urging Congress to approve $50 billion in emergency funding to rebuild the country’s aging air traffic control system.
Speaking at a White House news conference Friday evening, Duffy said the FAA began experiencing instability in its radar and communications systems around 3:36 p.m. ET, prompting the agency to issue a nationwide ground stop out of an abundance of caution.
Duffy attributed the disruption to outdated switches and routers that became overloaded with data, leading to inconsistent information reaching air traffic controllers.
“We have old, old switches, old routers. We use 1980s little copper lines,” Duffy said.
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Without a complete overhaul, Duffy warned that the nation’s aging air traffic control infrastructure would remain vulnerable to future disruptions.
“What went down was old, right? It was the old legacy equipment. It failed,” he said.
“And listen, it’s going to continue to fail.”
The transportation secretary called on Congress to provide $50 billion to modernize the nation’s air traffic control infrastructure, including replacing aging hardware, telecommunications equipment and control towers.
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“This is an emergency. I want Congress to give us emergency funding,” Duffy said. “This is bipartisan. This is American. I want $50 billion.”
While Duffy noted the Trump administration had already secured $12.5 billion toward modernization efforts, he argued that additional funding was still necessary to complete the overhaul.
The FAA’s previous modernization efforts have included a nearly $5 billion contract awarded to Rohde & Schwarz USA in April to replace up to 462 outdated voice communication switches.
More than 40 new switches have since been installed, according to FLYING magazine, while federal officials have also reported replacing roughly half of the aging copper wiring used to transmit radar and communications data with modern connections.
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Duffy also said newer equipment installed under the Trump administration had not experienced the same failures as the older infrastructure. He argued that replacing the entire system would be more effective than continuing to make temporary repairs.
The issue, Duffy asserted, should be treated as a national priority rather than a partisan dispute.
“This is not one of those issues,” he said. “This is an American issue.”
The FAA reopened U.S. airspace at approximately 8:15 p.m. ET, but Duffy warned that it would take time for airlines to resume normal operations.
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