FAA has determined that the source of a major ATC glitch this morning was a relatively new telecommunications system, and lawmakers are calling for an investigation.

The problem occurred at about 5 a.m. EST, when some systems - including flight data processing - went offline. The problem was fixed by 9 a.m., but it caused hundreds of delays and cancelations across the country. Surveillance and communications were not affected.

Initially, some lawmakers and media outlets blamed the "antiquated" ATC system, but this changed when it became clear the problem lay with the FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI), a new system installed and operated over the past few years by Harris Corp. under contract to the FAA. Now, scrutiny has shifted to the outsourcing issue.

House aviation subcommittee Chairman Jerry Costello (D-Ill.) said the incident "needs to be thoroughly reviewed," as it "brings up several questions that the FAA needs to address." Among these are why it took four hours to locate a "seemingly small technical problem," and why this had a system-wide effect.

Costello also wants to know if FAA's oversight of Harris is sufficient, particularly since the shift to NextGen will require more partnerships like this. He has called for the U.S. Transportation Dept.'s inspector general to conduct a 60-day study of both the outage and FAA's corrective actions.

The union representing FAA technicians claimed the problem could have been "fixed within minutes" if FAA owned and operated the FTI network. The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) union has long been a critic of the outsourcing of this capability.

The problem was traced to a router in Salt Lake City, which failed because of a software configuration issue. This meant FAA services such as flight planning and traffic flow management were "unavailable electronically," the agency said.

One of the systems affected was the National Airspace Data Interchange Network (NADIN), which relies on FTI. Controllers had to handle flight plan data and ground delay programs manually. "Controllers [were] without electronic decision-making tools and [could not] keep up with the sheer numbers of flights - resulting in delays," said the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

FAA said a team of technical and safety experts is examining the incident. Administrator Randy Babbitt will meet with Harris representatives "to discuss system corrections to prevent similar outages in the future."

In a statement, Harris said it is working with FAA to "evaluate the interruption" and stop it from occurring again. "FTI has proven to be one of the most reliable and secure communications networks operating within the civilian government," Harris said.

Photo credit: FAA