On September 17, 1991, a routine Con Edison-requested power transfer led to a rectifier trip at AT&T's 33 Thomas Street facility in Manhattan, which went unnoticed as backup batteries silently kept DC power flowing to FAA telecom lines. Hours later the batteries drained, cutting radar feeds, radios, and flight-handoff links for New York's radar center and the Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark towers simultaneously, forcing controllers onto manual backups and resulting in 1,174 flights delayed or canceled.
matthorn.io
· 2026-10-19
The Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Transportation have launched a trial of a new AI system called Strategic Management of Airspace Routes and Trajectories, or SMART, at Reagan National, Dulles International and BWI Thurgood Marshall airports. The $875 million system pulls together roughly 200 data streams covering flight paths, weather and staffing to predict delays and cancellations and suggest actions to controllers, who retain final decision-making authority.
cnet.com
· 2026-09-23
An FAA-issued ground stop on Monday delayed hundreds of flights across Newark, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, with reports pointing to a circuit malfunction and an accidentally severed fiber optic cable near Philadelphia's TRACON facility. The disruption coincided with the rollout of SMART, a new AI-driven air traffic management system, though officials have not linked the two events.
futurism.com
· 2026-09-21
The FAA is rolling out SMART, an AI tool that analyzes airline schedules, weather, and runway capacity to flag potential conflicts in advance, with an initial deployment in Washington DC's airspace beginning Monday. The project carries a price tag exceeding $875 million, part of a broader Trump administration push to modernize air traffic control following several high-profile aviation incidents.
futurism.com
· 2026-09-19
The FAA plans to roll out SMART, a cloud-based AI platform built by Air Space Intelligence, to help air traffic controllers manage workflows and flight routing amid an ongoing staffing shortage. The system analyzes airline schedules, weather, airport capacity and airspace conditions to predict traffic flows and flag potential conflicts before they happen, at a cost of $875 million over 12 years, starting in the Washington, D.C. area before wider rollout.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-17
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