Repair of old copper wiring caused US flight disruption: Trump admin

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Friday's nationwide ground stop -- meaning no planes can take off -- sparked widespread chaos and left hundreds of thousands of passengers in limbo, with some pulled off planes moments before they were due to depart by airline staff who appeared in the dark about unfolding events.

Weary travelers braced for more flight disruptions Saturday as service resumed at US airports after an hours-long stoppage that the Trump administration blamed on a botched replacement of old copper wire communication lines.

Friday's nationwide ground stop -- meaning no planes can take off -- sparked widespread chaos and left hundreds of thousands of passengers in limbo, with some pulled off planes moments before they were due to depart by airline staff who appeared in the dark about unfolding events.

"Tired. Exhausted. Frustrated. Yeah, you know, it's just a mess, right?" Lisa Beraid, 48, who works for an insurance company, told AFP as she waited for a flight Saturday morning at New York's La Guardia airport.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) chief Bryan Bedford said that 12,000 flights were canceled on Friday and between four and five thousand flights out of 41,000 scheduled for Saturday were likely to be canceled as well.

By early afternoon, tracking website FlightAware had recorded at least 5,000 canceled flights for Saturday.

Speaking at a news conference in Washington, Bedford offered a "sincere apology to the American traveling public."

He predicted a full resumption of flight schedules by "close of business on Sunday."

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday's four-hour ground stop was declared after maintenance work to upgrade an old copper wire to a high-speed fiber cable had caused "issues" with communication with airplanes and radar feeds.

"Either through contractor error or a faulty piece of equipment...it started flooding other routers in our air traffic control system," Duffy told reporters.

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