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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy revealed investigators are looking into whether a contractor’s error or a faulty router triggered a nationwide ground stop that snarled air traffic and left thousands of travelers stranded Friday.
Workers from federal contractor L3Harris were replacing old copper telecommunications wires with fiber optic lines at a “remote location” when the system went down, Duffy said at a press conference Saturday.
“What we’re working to determine was whether we had incompetence – meaning, was it user error or installator error from L3Harris — or did they install a faulty router? We haven’t determined what the fault was. Was it the router? Or were they not doing great work for us at L3Harris?” Duffy explained.
The transit boss emphasized that investigators “don’t believe” a cyber attack caused the widespread incident — but didn’t rule out the theory completely.
Although the exact cause of the meltdown is still being investigated, Duffy repeatedly tore into L3Harris over the incident.
L3Harris did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Duffy also pointed the finger at Congress, saying the work should have been done years earlier, and renewed his appeal for billions in new funding.
He had called on Congress to authorize $50 billion in new funding for a “state-of-the-art” air traffic control system on Friday night.
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