FAA router in middle-of-nowhere Arkansas identified as cause of nationwide flight chaos

A newly installed router at an FAA radio site in El Dorado, Arkansas, appears to have triggered Friday’s nationwide flight disruption by overwhelming the agency’s communications network. The failure interrupted links between pilots and air traffic controllers, leading officials to ground flights across the United States.

The outage affected 17 of the FAA’s 22 high-altitude control centres, and more than 3,500 flights were grounded during a shutdown of about five hours. Officials are investigating whether faulty equipment or installation errors by contractor L3Harris caused the problem; a router in Amarillo, Texas, is also being examined. The FAA said there was no evidence of a cyber attack.