September 21, 2026
Hundreds of flights halted on the day the FAA activated AI in the sky: a contractor cut a cable
619 cancelled flights in Newark, 197 in Philadelphia, and nearly seven hours of disruption: the FAA's AI system had nothing to do with it.
At 9:45, a contractor in New Jersey cut a communications cable. Fifteen minutes later, New York and Philadelphia airports stopped allowing planes to depart.
That same Monday, 21 September, the FAA activated its SMART AI system over Washington. Only the date coincided: the primary communications circuit burned out at the approach control center near Philadelphia, while a New Jersey Transit contractor cut the backup line.
Scale. Newark cancelled 619 flights, Philadelphia 197, and departures were delayed by up to 150 minutes. The stops began around ten in the morning, and planes started moving after five in the evening: nearly seven hours of disruption. Three more airports were affected, including JFK and LaGuardia.
What SMART does. The system combines around 200 data streams, from weather to air-traffic-controller shift loads, into one cloud platform and forecasts where bottlenecks will form hours, days, and weeks ahead. It does not control aircraft: it issues no clearances and does not separate planes. Its recommendations are reviewed by FAA staff and managers at the relevant tower, who can reject them.
"This is all simply about data hygiene and helping traffic coordinators make better decisions," says FAA chief Brian Bedford. SMART was built by Boston-based Air Space Intelligence: a nearly $875 million contract for 12 years, while the government had previously valued a similar system at $12 billion.
For now, the system operates in a limited mode and only over Washington: Reagan National, Dulles, and Baltimore/Washington. It operates from 24,000 feet, meaning with aircraft that have already reached cruise altitude. There are no success metrics for the first phase.
For three months, airlines attended almost weekly meetings with the FAA and still did not establish whether they could opt out of the system or whether staff needed training for it. On 10 September, Bedford gathered the heads of United, American, Delta, and Southwest. Scott Kirby of United: "If this works the way we think it will, delays will fall more than from anything else."
On launch day, Virginia congressman Don Beyer called for SMART to be suspended: controllers were not brought into development and were not trained before launch, while Reagan National handles 24 million passengers a year.
The first test phase is designed to last around 90 days: SMART will remain over Washington until the end of December.
