Washington: The United States was hit by a major aviation crisis after a sudden communication failure at air traffic control centers forced the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to halt flight operations across the country. The disruption brought American airspace to an abrupt standstill, sending shockwaves through the global aviation sector.
More than 10,000 flights have been severely delayed and over 6,600 services cancelled. Thousands of passengers were left stranded at airports nationwide.
Microsoft rules out link
As speculation grew that Microsoft’s cloud or software services might be behind the failure, the company issued a clear statement distancing itself from the incident. Given past global tech outages that badly hit airlines, banks and digital networks, many had assumed a fault in Microsoft’s systems could be to blame.
Microsoft strongly denied the reports. Company representatives said there had been no disruption in its systems, servers or cloud services, and that there is no evidence linking its technology to the ground stop. The company said it is examining the incident and is ready to extend all necessary technical support to FAA officials.
Investigation under way
The FAA and the US Department of Homeland Security are investigating the incident with the utmost seriousness. As part of the preliminary inquiry, officials examined whether a cyberattack was involved. Based on the evidence gathered so far, no cyberattack has been confirmed.
Initial assessments suggest the problem may have stemmed from an internal technical fault in the air traffic control communication network, or a software synchronization failure. The scale of the flight suspension is being described as one of the rarest incidents in US history. Although authorities took immediate steps with passenger safety in mind, travelers continue to face difficulties due to the grounded flights.