FAA examines possible link to SMART AI system
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on La Nouvelle Tribune
The Federal Aviation Administration is examining a possible link between the telecommunications outage that halted US take-offs and the SMART AI system. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the possibility was being investigated after SMART was deployed at all 22 control centres, according to La Nouvelle Tribune.
US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said on Friday 13 November that authorities were examining a possible link between the telecommunications outage that paralysed air traffic and SMART, an artificial intelligence system recently deployed at Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) control centres. “We are looking into that,” he replied, after ruling out a malicious attack, according to La Nouvelle Tribune.
The FAA had extended SMART on 10 November to all 22 US en route control centres, following an initial deployment around Washington on 21 September. The tool cross-references around 200 data streams, including weather, flight paths, traffic and controller staffing, to anticipate congestion, according to the federal agency.
Air Space Intelligence (ASI), the company that provides SMART to the FAA, rejected any link with the outage, saying that the halt to flights “does not rely on the SMART system” and was not a consequence of its integration with the FAA and air traffic control, according to the Washington Times.
The outage led the FAA to ban take-offs at 4:16 pm Eastern Time on Friday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy attributed it to a communications problem affecting en route control centres, while the FAA described it as a temporary telecommunications outage, according to La Nouvelle Tribune. This interruption constitutes the third nationwide shutdown of US air traffic after those of 11 September 2001 and January 2023. It followed the suspension of all flights across the US, announced on 13 November.
