Follow-Up: Two Cabinet Secretaries Brief at the White House on the Nationwide Ground Stop: No Evidence of a Cyberattack, Congress Urged to Fund Air Traffic Control Modernization
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin, alongside U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy, held a press briefing at the White House on Friday evening, November 13, in response to the nationwide ground stop of all flights that followed a temporary telecommunications outage. Mullin said all of the public's loved ones are safe, that officials are working to resolve the issue, and that they hope to have operations up and normal at some point.
Mullin said there is zero evidence that this was a cyberattack or an SI attack. He said America's air traffic control system is outdated and has not been a priority for Congress, and that this is what happens when Congress kicks the can down the road.
Mullin said President Trump has declared this a national emergency. He said the outdated air traffic control system is a national security risk and that Congress must act and fund a modernized system. During the press conference, Mullin and Duffy both stressed the national security importance of updating and modernizing America's air traffic control system and called on Congress to take action.
On the mission of the Department of Homeland Security, Mullin said the department was stood up to provide continuity of government and bring all resources together in an emergency like this. He said DHS has all of its assets engaged, from the Department of War to CISA and its national operations centers, and that the NSA is working with the department.
Mullin also said no one was in danger because the procedures in place worked, and that when the system went down, officials reacted the way they were trained to react. He said President Trump immediately had people in his office and officials were communicating, and that Secretary Duffy and the FAA took immediate actions under their established procedures to assure everybody was safe.
As GSM reported earlier, the FAA ordered all departures at U.S. airports held on the ground that afternoon over communication issues affecting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers, and the ground stop was lifted at about 8:30 p.m. Eastern after more than four hours, with nearly 6,000 U.S. flights canceled on Friday. (Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security)
Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于华盛顿的美国国土安全部总部（圣伊丽莎白园区）航拍。Michael Hvozda／美国海岸警卫队摄，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Aerial view of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security headquarters (St. Elizabeths Campus) in Washington. Photo by Michael Hvozda, U.S. Coast Guard, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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