Michael Goodwin: Transportation Secretary Duffy’s call for more cash was off key. Money alone won’t fix the FAA.

After widespread flight disruption grounded aircraft and stranded tens of thousands of travellers, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Homeland Security director Markwayne Mullin said they did not yet know the cause or when normal operations would resume. The columnist argues that their willingness to acknowledge uncertainty was the right response, since claiming certainty without evidence could have undermined public trust.

Officials initially suspected ageing hardware and ruled out a cyber attack only in the limited sense that there was “zero evidence” of one. By Saturday, as up to 4,000 more flights were delayed or cancelled, investigators were examining whether a contractor’s error or faulty equipment triggered the failure; Duffy said work replacing copper wires with fibre optic cable had overloaded a router, but it was unclear whether the equipment or contractor was at fault.