周五空中的通信故障之后，紧接着出现了地面上的通信故障。政府关于美国联邦航空管理局（FAA）全国性停飞令的混乱信息发布，加剧了滞留乘客的焦虑，并引发了关于混乱“真正”原因的阴谋论。
Communications failures in the air on Friday were followed by communications failures on the ground. The government’s muddled messaging about the FAA’s nationwide ground stop added to the anxieties of stranded passengers and induced conspiracy theories about the “real” cause of the chaos.
官员们于周六上午举行第二场新闻发布会，以回应疑虑并缓解担忧，但因技术故障而迟迟未能开始——这成了更大问题的一个不幸隐喻。
Officials held a second press conference on Saturday morning to address questions and alleviate concerns, but it started late due to technical difficulties — an unfortunate metaphor of the larger problem.
这场航班大乱紧随一场持续大半天的全球微软故障之后发生。这家科技巨头通过难以解读的社交媒体帖子解释情况，加剧了人们对 Outlook 电子邮件无法使用原因的困惑。
The flight chaos came right on the heels of a global Microsoft outage that lasted the better part of a day. The tech giant explained the situation in hard-to-decipher social media posts, adding to the confusion about why Outlook email wasn’t working.
本周的微软故障和机场瘫痪互无关联，但两者都导致了一种令人不安的不稳定感，这种感觉弥漫在大多数人每天习以为常的系统内部。
This week’s Microsoft and airport meltdowns were unrelated, but both contributed to an unnerving sense of instability inside systems that most people take for granted every day.
在这两起事件中，社交媒体平台上堆满了用户的评论，他们询问是否是失控的 AI 模型导致了事故，并推测基础设施是否发生了更广泛的崩溃。
In both cases, social media platforms were stacked with comments from users asking if rogue AI models were to blame and speculating about a broader breakdown in infrastructure.
在周六的新闻发布会上，交通部长肖恩·达菲表示，旅行中断是由于一个老旧电信系统的孤立事件造成的。
At Saturday’s press conference, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the travel disruption was due to an isolated incident with an old telecommunication system.
“我们没有看到任何蓄意破坏的证据，也没有看到任何与 AI 相关的证据，”联邦航空管理局局长布莱恩·贝德福德补充道。
“We see zero evidence of anything nefarious and zero evidence of anything AI-related,” FAA administrator Bryan Bedford added.
不过，议员和危机沟通专家认为，周六的解释为时已晚、杯水车薪，他们表示最初的应对让糟糕的局势变得更糟。
Saturday’s explanations, though, were deemed too little, too late by lawmakers and crisis communication experts who said the initial response made a bad situation even worse.
“危机沟通的基本原则并不难掌握，”CNN 资深国家安全分析师朱丽叶·凯耶姆表示。“在关键时刻，领导人需要公开透明、表述清晰。他们需要告诉人们已知什么、未知什么，以及正在采取什么行动来弥合这一差距。周五我们几乎什么都没得到。” 沟通故障还延伸到了不得不改道和取消航班的各个航空公司。
“The basics of crisis communications are not difficult to grasp,” said CNN senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem. “In the moment, leaders need to be transparent and clear. They need to tell people what is known, what is not known, and what they are doing to close that gap. We got little of that on Friday.”The communications failures extended to the individual airlines that had to reroute and cancel flights.
政府最初于美国东部时间下午 4 点发布的关于全国停飞的公告很简短 —— 因为时间紧迫 —— 且留有多种解读空间。
The government’s initial 4 p.m. ET announcement about the national ground stop was short — because time was of the essence — and open to many different interpretations.
公告称，所有起飞均因 “特殊情况及安全原因” 而停止。这条信息几乎可以被理解为任何含义。一些旅客担心可能发生恐怖袭击，另一些人则怀疑空管系统是否遭到黑客攻击。
The announcement said all departures were stopped “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.”That message could have meant almost anything. Some travelers worried about a possible terror attack, while others wondered if the air traffic control system had been hacked.
官方回应寥寥无几。在主要机场，数百名乘客仍涌入安检通道，希望航班仍能起飞。纽瓦克自由国际机场的广播在一个多小时内都未提及停飞一事。
Answers were in short supply. At major airports, hundreds of passengers still streamed into security lines in hopes their flights would still take off. Overhead announcements at Newark Liberty International Airport didn’t acknowledge the ground stop for more than an hour.
航空公司对旅客的沟通也不一致。来自印第安纳州米勒斯堡的 Bryson Moser 称，他在芝加哥奥黑尔国际机场的跑道上滞留了约 8 小时，随后其飞往南卡罗来纳州查尔斯顿的航班最终被取消。
Airlines were also inconsistent in their communications with fliers. Bryson Moser of Millersburg, Indiana, said he was stuck on a runway at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport for roughly eight hours before his flight to Charleston, South Carolina, was eventually canceled.
“我们的机长与联合航空失去了联系，”Moser 告诉 CNN。“跑道上的每位机长都说毫无进展。一次次打电话给航空公司询问该怎么办，却无人接听。我们的机长已尽力告知我们他所知道的一切。” 国土安全部长 Markwayne Mullin 于美国东部时间下午 5 点刚过在白宫对记者表示 “所有人都安全”，但仍让许多观众和旅客对局势感到困惑。
“Our pilot was cut off from United,” Moser told CNN. “Every pilot on the runway said they were having no luck. Call after call to the airline for what to do, with no answer. Our pilot did his best to tell us what he could.”Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin spoke with reporters at the White House shortly after 5 p.m. ET and said “everyone is safe,” but still left many viewers and fliers confused about the situation.
随后，Mullin 和 Duffy 举行了黄金时段新闻发布会。但对该发布会的广泛批评凸显了一个事实：唐纳德·特朗普总统及其政府成员面临信任赤字。
Mullin and Duffy then held a primetime press briefing. But the widespread criticism of the briefing underlined the fact that President Donald Trump and members of his administration suffer from a trust deficit.
在某些情况下，官员们主动播下了对其所领导政府的不信任种子。Duffy 于去年 9 月因表示他 “很难再相信政府了” 并暗示他相信许多阴谋论而登上头条。
In some cases, officials have actively sown distrust of the government they run. Duffy made headlines last September for saying he has a “hard time believing the government anymore” and suggesting that he believes in a lot of conspiracy theories.
穆林在周五的简报会上劝阻阴谋论思维。但凯耶姆表示，穆林和达菲“缺乏一致的信息传递”“并未展现出能力或从容”。
Mullin discouraged conspiracy thinking during Friday’s briefing. But the “lack of consistent messaging” by Mullin and Duffy “did not project competency or comfort,” Kayyem said.
她说：“我常说，在危机时刻，人们需要‘事实与希望’。这是他们想要的，也是他们应得的。‘事实’是指正在发生的事情以及他们可以预期的情况。而‘希望’是指领导人正在竭尽全力解决问题。我昨天没看到这些。”
“I often say that in a crisis, people need ‘facts and hope.’ That’s what they want; that’s what they deserve,” she said. “‘Facts’ about what is happening and what they can expect. And ‘hope’ that leaders are doing everything they can to fix it. I didn’t see that yesterday.”
加利福尼亚州民主党众议员乔治·怀特赛兹曾任美国国家航空航天局（NASA）幕僚长，他在X平台上写道，政府“缺乏沟通”“非常糟糕”。“交通部和国土安全部的领导人迟迟未提供最新情况，等他们开口时，既没有对发生了什么给出好的解释，也没有说明是否会再次发生，”怀特赛兹写道。
Democratic Rep. George Whitesides of California, a former chief of staff at NASA, wrote on X that “the lack of communications from the administration” was “really poor.”“The Transportation and Homeland Security leaders were slow to provide updates, and when they did speak, they didn’t have good explanations about what was happening, nor whether it would happen again,” Whitesides wrote.