FAA begins rollout of AI air traffic tool in Washington region

newsSep 21, 202615334

The Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Transportation launched the SMART artificial intelligence tool in the Washington, D.C., region to help identify potential congestion and trim flight delays; the FAA says SMART will not replace human air traffic controllers, who remain responsible for keeping planes separated. The rollout coincided with a major telecom failure at Philadelphia’s Terminal Radar Approach Control facility after a New Jersey Transit contractor severed a Verizon fiber-optic cable, producing ground stops at Newark Liberty, Teterboro and Philadelphia and later expanding to LaGuardia and JFK. The outage left dozens of planes idling, caused departure delays up to 150 minutes, and as of 6 p.m. ET coincided with about 619 cancellations at Newark and 197 at Philadelphia. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said telecom lines were repaired roughly seven hours after the cut and flights were resuming, while FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the backup line had also been cut and that a fiber break could take about 13 hours to repair. The FAA said it had a new circuit ready to install, and officials stressed the incident highlights needs to modernize aging infrastructure. The SMART rollout is an early operational deployment in a congested U.S. region; officials and lawmakers are likely to watch whether the tool helps reduce delays as infrastructure repairs and system tests continue.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal

@jayapal.house.gov

The FAA is deploying AI technology for air traffic control in the DC-area, one of the most crowded air spaces in the country. Safety must always be the FAA's number one priority. This is extremely concerning and we need immediate answers about what this means for travelers.

1285h ago

mjayne01.bsky.social4

Amtrak always needs a boost & might be the way to travel.

debeckert23

Yeah this is going to work. Just wait and see what happens when the first plane collides with another plane. They could give two 💩s about human beings do they.

knightingael.bsky.social3

I would rather row a boat through shark infested waters with a steak tied to it.

Outside Life3

It means people will die

Charles Walters2

If AI trys to get out of sandbox why would it stay within lines.

Teresa Lowe1

What could possibly go wrong LOL

The Associated Press

@apnews.com

Technical problems are resolved and operations resume after hundreds of Northeast U.S. flight disruptions, Transportation Secretary says.

582h ago

Chris⚖️Justice1

Incompetent regime. Problem after problem. Is Sean Duffy on vacation again?

Quoting this

Colleen Mondor10

I swear to all the gods, if Duffy or Bedford come out and say the primary line failure was due to the Biden administration, I will lose my damn mind. How long did they know that this was a potential problem and how many techs do they have working in this area?

Jonathan Harris

@jonathan-a-thon.bsky.social

Can’t wait to pay an extra $80 per seat for a human air traffic controller to make sure my plane isn’t directed straight into a Jiffy Lube. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/u...

4523h ago

henzington.bsky.social2

Can’t wait till a hallucination crashes a plane

Stevie Nips1

I absolutely hate flying and the past few years are not helping with that.

Caroline Baxter

@convergingriskslab.bsky.social

Ideally, we would have nailed down what "human control" really means in AI before "soft-launching" an AI system to manage air traffic. "The FAA stresses SMART will not replace human air‑traffic controllers, who remain responsible for keeping planes safely separated." www.fox5dc.com/news/faa-set...

3011h ago

Roger ZenAF 🖕🐸🖕

@rogerzenaf.bsky.social

Ai air traffic control integration seems to be working out swimmingly! 🙄

162h ago

joe a wilkins

@joeonhere.bsky.social

To be clear, the region impacted by the ground stop doesn't appear to include the DC area, where the new AI tool (SMART) is apparently live, but the timing of it all is pretty funny www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

A screenshot of an article reading "The US Federal Aviation Administration began rolling out a new artificial intelligence tool that the agency said will help air traffic controllers identify spots of potential congestion early on to help curb flight delays and cancellations.
The FAA began using this new tool, known as SMART, in a “limited mode” Monday in the airspace around Washington, the US Transportation Department said in a news release. The government said it plans to gradually expand it to other parts of the country."

195h ago

matthew

@pahuski.com

great detail buried in the story about today's outage at PHL and other airports: an NJ Transit contractor severed a fiber optic cable

42h ago

michaeledward

@michaeledward.bsky.social

If your final destination is Washington DC take the bus on your final leg Air Traffic Control is run by A. I.

62h ago

Zico

@willownbirch.bsky.social

Recent FAA flight disruptions stem primarily from an aging national air traffic control infrastructure encountering accidental fiber cuts & outdated equipment. Imagine if Trump prioritized his Ballroom, Arches, Reflective pool, gold statues, gold emblems, name on building for something that matters

42h ago

ltwlauren🤸‍♀️❤️🎶🎨🐾

@ltwlauren.bsky.social

#Blues NPR states that AI may be considered as air traffic controllers. apnews.com/article/faa-... are disrupted across the US Northeast due to technical problems at a key air traffic center

32h ago

Le désobéissant 🏴Ministre fantôme pour les ministres fantômes

@sybilchaos.bsky.social

Fcuk me! AI decides to land all the aircraft at once to improve efficiency. FAA AI air traffic Users joke and worry about a new AI tool called SMART managing DC-area flights.

74h ago

Kirk Rudell

@rudell.bsky.social

SMART has finished crunching scheduling and weather data. Would you like SMART to explore other ways to make air traffic more efficient? [Supervisor must manually opt-out in 3…2…1…] SMART calculates that 30% fewer planes would be optimal and will begin a process of eliminating them.

F.A.A. to Roll Out New
A.I. Tool for
Washington Airports
The tool, called SMART, will crunch scheduling and weather data to predict and avoid delays. It will be deployed in the Washington region's three major airports next week.

3Yesterday

Mr Buttons 🏴‍☠️🤡 soft clowning era. Still obsessed with 🏴‍☠️ and🦇 🐺

@mrbuttons284266.bsky.social

Between the construction workers cutting the cord, the FAA launching their new AI air traffic tool today, and the UK's air traffic control system having problems yet again, I don't know where to start.

42h ago