US flights resume after communications outage halts departures
The Federal Aviation Administration lifted the ground stop after about four hours, and France 24 reported nearly 6,000 flights cancelled as airlines worked through the backlog.
All departing flights in the United States were grounded for several hours on Saturday after what government officials described as a major communications outage caused by decades-old technology. The Federal Aviation Administration lifted the order after about four hours, Dawn reported, and said US airspace had "opened up".
Flights began resuming, but authorities said a return to normal schedules would take time. France 24 reported that nearly 6,000 flights were cancelled during the stoppage and described the restart as gradual.
The Department of Homeland Security said the incident did not appear to be the result of any "nefarious attack", The Japan Times reported. Dawn reported that officials put the outage down to ageing technology. Neither account named the system that failed or said how many airports were affected.
Dawn reported that hundreds of thousands of passengers were left waiting, and that some were taken off aircraft moments before departure by airline staff who appeared not to know what was happening. The reports gave no figure for the number of people whose journeys were disrupted.
Dawn and France 24 both noted that it was only the second time an alert grounding all flights had been issued in US airspace since the attacks of 11 September 2001. Neither report said how long the full recovery of the system was expected to take, and airlines did not give schedules for clearing the backlog in the accounts available.
How the reports differ
Dawn, carrying the story twice, was the outlet that put a timeline on events, reporting that the Federal Aviation Administration lifted the ground stop after about four hours and quoting the agency saying airspace had "opened up". France 24 alone attached a number to the disruption, reporting nearly 6,000 flights cancelled, and framed the restart as gradual. The Japan Times led on the Department of Homeland Security's statement that the outage did not appear to be a "nefarious attack", a line the other reports did not carry. The Hindu's report repeated the grounding headline without adding detail beyond it.
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