Markwayne Mullin: No sign yet of deliberate attack after US flights grounded

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said authorities have no evidence so far that the nationwide grounding of flights was caused by a deliberate attack, and warned that restoring normal air traffic will take time. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/f81b0904331dafad6133f291e5f531a8?utm_source=openai))

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Mullin stressed that safety is the immediate priority and that controllers know the location of aircraft currently in the sky.

“Everyone is safe. We know where all the planes are. The public has no reason to be afraid,” Mullin told journalists. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/f81b0904331dafad6133f291e5f531a8?utm_source=openai))

FAA grounds flights as telecom outage affects communications

Mullin said the problem stems from a telecommunications outage and that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a nationwide grounding of departures as a precaution while controllers work to restore communications. He warned there is no quick fix and officials do not expect air traffic to return to normal within an hour. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/f81b0904331dafad6133f291e5f531a8?utm_source=openai))

Asked whether the disruption could be linked to other recent service outages, Mullin said there was no reason at present to connect today’s event to a separate Microsoft service disruption. He added that, while investigators must consider cyberattacks as a possibility given the frequency of such incidents, officials had not yet identified a cause. “While we investigate what caused this — and given how many cyber-attacks occur, you always have to proceed from that assumption — still, at this moment, it remains unknown,” he said. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/f81b0904331dafad6133f291e5f531a8?utm_source=openai))

Mullin said restoring communications and ensuring the safe landing of all aircraft still airborne are the immediate priorities. He emphasized investigators will continue working to identify the root cause and that authorities “are not ruling anything out at this point.” ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/f81b0904331dafad6133f291e5f531a8?utm_source=openai))

Photo: Printskrin