Transportation secretary blames ‘routine’ equipment upgrade for grounding flights nationwide

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday that a nationwide ground stop halting flights across the United States was caused by seemingly routine maintenance work.

Duffy said that during “routine maintenance,” copper wire at a remote location was being upgraded to fiber optic cable by L3Harris, a longtime contractor for the Federal Aviation Administration. After the upgrade, a router overloaded a critical communication system, leading to the ground stop.