The Federal Aviation Administration's new AI-driven air traffic tool, SMART, is under scrutiny after a nationwide ground stop halted U.S. departures on Friday afternoon, three days after the FAA expanded the system to all 22 of its air route traffic control centers. Air Space Intelligence, the company that built SMART, denied any connection, and federal officials have not named a confirmed cause.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said "instability" in radar communications at air traffic control centers began just after 3:30 p.m. ET. More than 3,500 planes were in the air when the ground stop was issued. As of 6:45 p.m. ET, FlightAware data showed more than 10,000 flights delayed and more than 3,200 canceled within, into or out of the United States.
The FAA lifted the stop Friday night, and Duffy said at a press conference that the airspace had reopened and some flights had started to take off. He blamed an "incredibly old air traffic system" that went down everywhere after it got overloaded, and warned that recovery would be slow.
“We have old switches, old routers, we use 1980s little copper lines”— Sean Duffy, U.S. Secretary of Transportation
Key facts
- 01The FAA expanded its SMART AI air traffic tool to all 22 en route centers on Nov. 10, three days before Friday's nationwide ground stop.
- 02More than 10,000 U.S. flights were delayed and over 3,200 canceled as of 6:45 p.m. ET Friday, per FlightAware.
- 03Air Space Intelligence, which built SMART under an $875M, 12-year contract, denied any link to the outage.
- 04DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said investigators are examining SMART but called the event a telecommunications outage.
- 05The FAA says SMART rerouted 180 flights since Sept. 21, saving about 10 minutes and 80 gallons of fuel per flight.
SMART, short for Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories, is a cloud-based system that centralizes 200 data streams into one platform, according to the FAA. Those inputs include weather patterns, flight paths, traffic flow and controller staffing metrics.
FAA specialists at a SMART center in Washington, D.C., validate the system's output and send scheduling recommendations to the Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Warrenton, Virginia. The Command Center routes them to facilities, where local leadership decides whether to accept or decline each suggestion.
Air Space Intelligence built SMART under an $875 million, 12-year contract. The tool went live in the National Capital Region on Sept. 21, and the FAA announced the nationwide expansion on Nov. 10. Since September, the agency said, SMART has helped reroute 180 flights, saving an average of 10 minutes and almost 80 gallons of fuel per flight.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters that investigators were "looking at" whether SMART was connected to the communications failure. He also described the event as a telecommunications outage and said a cyberattack did not appear to be the cause, while adding that "there is nothing certain right now."
“You can't rule out anything at this point”— Markwayne Mullin, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security
Air Space Intelligence rejected the link in a statement on X, saying the ground stop "is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC."
Other reporting points to network infrastructure. CBS News, citing multiple sources, reported that an update to a private communications network operated by L3Harris Technologies triggered a reboot, a crash and a communications outage. Microsoft said its own global outage on Friday did not appear to be a factor.
Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation, said on CNN she did not know whether SMART and the outage were linked but called the timing "too much coincidence." In October, more than two dozen lawmakers wrote to Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford relaying controller concerns that frontline staff had little input into SMART's development.
Friday's stop was only the third nationwide ground stop in U.S. history, following one in January 2023 tied to a failed FAA computer system and one after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Congress approved $12.5 billion for FAA modernization last year, and the Trump administration has requested another $30 billion.
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