Breaking News English

Thousands of flights across the USA were grounded on Friday the 13th [following / followed] a major communications [fail / failure] in the country's air traffic control system. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a nationwide ground stop [post / after] problems with radar and communications equipment. More than 3,500 airplanes were [on / in] the air at the time. Thousands of flights were cancelled, [leaving / left] passengers stranded at airports nationwide. The problem was [eventually / eventual] traced to an overloaded [roster / router] , possibly as a result [to / of] maintenance work to replace decades-old copper wires with fibre-optic cables. The FAA [upped / lifted] the ground stop almost five hours later. Operations may take days to return [for / to] normal.

The incident [sparked / sparkled] widespread concern. Officials quickly reassured the public [that / what] it was not another 9/11. The US homeland security secretary said there had been [no / none] indication of a cyberattack or national security [threat / treat] . He described the incident [was / as] a "telecommunications outage". Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed the failure [in / on] outdated infrastructure. He said: "We have old [switches / swathes] and old routers. We use 1980s little copper lines." He added: "It's an old system that went down. [It / They] went down everywhere. It got overloaded." Duffy warned that systems would "continue to break" [unless / useless] Congress allocated extra funds. He said: "I can't [built / build] things if I don't have money."