Technology

FAA ground stop raises questions after rollout of new AI air-traffic system

Senior Reporter · Saturday, November 14, 2026 at 4:43 AM · 2 min read

FAA ground stop raises questions after rollout of new AI air-traffic system — Montgomery Technology news

A nationwide Federal Aviation Administration ground stop Friday prompted questions online about a new artificial intelligence tool recently introduced across the country. The system is the Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories system, also known as SMART, and it's designed to analyze weather, flight paths, air traffic and controller staffing to help predict congestion and recommend more efficient routes.

The Details

The FAA expanded SMART to all 22 air traffic control centers on Nov. 10, after first using it in the Washington, D.C., area in September.

The ground stop began Friday afternoon after communications problems affected air traffic control centers around the country. In audio from Atlanta air traffic control, a controller told pilots, "I've been told ground stop everything."

Another transmission said the only information passed along was "frequency issues in multiple centers."

As speculation spread online that SMART may have contributed to the outage, Air Space Intelligence, the company awarded the FAA's $875 million, 12-year contract for the system, said in a post on X that the ground stop "is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC."

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the outage involved aging air traffic control infrastructure, including an old TDM analog system. He said outdated switches, routers and copper lines were overwhelmed with data.

Duffy also called on Congress to allocate $50 billion to upgrade the system, pointing to administration initiatives including the Modern Skies Act.

Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocated $5 billion to air traffic control, with that money beginning to roll out in 2022. More recently, the One Big Beautiful Bill allocated $12.5 billion to fix and modernize air traffic control systems.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said officials were still investigating whether a cyberattack or artificial intelligence played a role. He said there was no indication of a malicious attack, but he would not rule out possibilities while the investigation continued.

The FAA lifted the ground stop Friday night. It was the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023, when the agency's Notice to Air Missions system failed, and the second since the Sept. 11 attacks.