Air traffic outage reportedly came as old and new networks clashed

More than 10,000 flights got thrown into chaos today because the system that guides every plane in America still runs on copper wire from the 1980s. And it broke while they were in the middle of replacing it. Here's what we know now that the ground stop is over. Around 3:36 Eastern, the 22 big centers that handle planes once they're above 18,000 feet started getting bad data from their radar and comms links. The FAA told airlines the router problem looks like it started at Chicago Midway. CBS has multiple sources saying an update to the private network that ties all of air traffic control together kicked off a reboot, and the system crashed coming back up. At 3:54 the FAA stopped every departure in the country. It stayed that way until 8:15. Then Duffy and Mullin held a press conference,…

I am itching to know more: what exactly was the software outage at the FAA that forced grounding all US flights? Massive real-world consequences of something like this: disrupting all of air travel