However, the National Air Traffic Controllers Union (NATCA) said it has not been “involved in the design, testing, or implementation of SMART and therefore cannot speak to its effect on the air traffic control workforce.”

“NATCA believes any new technology should complement and not replace the experience, training, and professional judgment of air traffic controllers who are responsible for the safety of the National Airspace System,” the union said in a statement.

Smacks of: I built a fully functional MVP now just need a co-founder to sell it.

That seems like pretty important context actually, and is a surprise to me.

Seems like there are three plausible causes right now given the extremely limited communication from the govt.

1. The AI system rolled out yesterday had more access than publicly claimed and managed to break things.

2. The ongoing large scale equipment upgrade went wrong.

3. General incompetence from a department run by an unqualified realty show actor, within an administration that is actively hostile to expertise and experience in the federal workforce.

"SMART is a cloud-based system that centralizes 200 data streams – including weather patterns, flight paths, traffic flow, and controller staffing metrics – into one platform."

What could go wrong really...

I don't see why they would care about the NATCA's evaluation of the system. As a union, they have a vested interest in protecting the employment of traffic flight controller workers more than public safety.

Even assuming they don’t care about public safety at all, their members are still going to have to work with it, and happen to be among the world’s leading experts in air traffic control, weirdly enough.

From the very first line of that article:

> The FAA has reassured the public and airlines that SMART only suggests routes and doesn't affect air safety.

[delayed]

Yes, of course, who wouldn't just believe random statements from the worst prepared admin in history of America.

That would make me feel better if we could trust a damn word from this administration and I wasn’t on a plane waiting to land.

The good news is this outage is not impacting approach or ground control so you’re safe.

Except some airports haven't enough free gates for disembarking as planes that wanted to take off were denied. So they tried to go back to their gates. As a result some planes in the air are being diverted to less-busy airports.

Sounds safe, just extremely inconvenient.

John Wayne, a class C (the approach mentioned above) isn't even letting VFRs go. If it's actually limited to ARTCC I don't know why that would be.

Thanks, bud - very reassuring that some minimum bid contract shop built something on a “secure” network they can’t even keep up.

It's also the corporations that are not exactly telling the truth & funding the administrations, just FTR...

The destructive & arrogant behaviors won't be reigned in properly if we all fail to recognize that, just FTR.

If it's working correctly, anyway

Until it got out of its sandbox…

Sure, but the tool needs to get information from the communication systems, and if it's badly written maybe it could overload some system components.

That's just a scenario off the top of my head, it could be a lot of stuff. Plugging something new into an old, complicated system isn't risk free.

This seems highly uncharacteristic of the FAA. Aren't they normally fastidious about safety? Why would they do this

That system just makes suggestions and isn't actually integrated in any ATC system. This is a telecom issue.

Its more than likely that system is just created by some Trump donor and was purchased by the FAA to launder public funds to some company that Trump owes a favor too. Its not actually integrated with anything.

Perhaps it's using the same communications channels and has overwhelmed them?

Hosted in Azure?

SMART is a cloud-based system that centralizes 200 data streams – including weather patterns, flight paths, traffic flow, and controller staffing metrics – into one platform.

yeah... sounds about right.

> That system just makes suggestions and isn't actually integrated in any ATC system. This is a telecom issue.

Is there any evidence for this beyond a single statement from the govt? This administration hasn't exactly developed a reputation for fully accurate and truthful reporting.

> Botched rollout of AI for ATC announced yesterday as rolling out nationwide?

Botched rollout of AI for ATC ...

or

Rollout of botched AI for ATC.

It sure didn't that long after every dev on earth started using LLMs for everything to turn to shit, so one may wonder...

[delayed]

Has anyone in the history of government estimated that for anything?

I know you're asking rhetorically, but... yes.

Yes, ROI estimates are very common in all kinds of government spending.

I fucking hate how this completely ignorant bullcorn about government waste has infected the minds of so many otherwise seemingly intelligent people that they just assume that the most powerful nation on the planets government just lights money on fire for no reason whatsoever, with no systems for estimates, for accountability, for accounting of spend, etc.

Meanwhile the reality is almost comically inverse. Which is not to say government pork doesn’t exist and projects don’t end up wildly bad on ROI, but just to say I have seen so much more waste, and with FAR less justification, in the private sector. Especially justification which so often is “someone in the C-suite wanted to do some shit” which ended up costing us millions of dollars.

Not so sure this administration cares about ROI in the same way previous administrations did, though.

They have no idea, ChatGPT is down ATM.

SMART developed by ASI and the FAA is pushing to own a portion of the company:

"The FAA in June awarded Boston-based startup Air Space Intelligence a contract — worth up to $875.9 million — for an AI-powered tool to help air traffic controllers manage the nation’s skies and a related system for an FAA nerve center in northern Virginia to better handle plane congestion. The AI platform’s initial launch in the Washington area has sparked concern among Democrats in Congress who say it should be put on pause until they have a better understanding of how it’s being deployed."

"Over two dozen lawmakers have called on the FAA to pause its 90-day evaluation period for the platform, which began late last month in the Washington region. They say there’s been an “egregious lack of transparency.”"

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/15/faa-stake-ai-compan...

Feels like somebody was pushing their preferred company for a government contract and now is push for the government to invest.

NYT: "In a social media post on Friday, the company [ASI] said, 'The current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC.'"

Just like MS didn't fuck up outlook with AI. I'll hold judgment on what actually happened until 6 months from now.

The AI prompt misunderstood 'grounding'.

AI tech is nowhere near reliable enough to be introduced in such important systems. I find this deeply troubling even if it’s not related to the current issue.