美国交通部长肖恩·达菲表示，通信线路中的“旧设备”导致了系统崩溃，并排除了网络攻击的可能性。
Sean Duffy, the US transport secretary, said that ‘old equipment’ in communication lines had caused the collapse and ruled out a cyber attack Based in Washington, Poppy has led investigations into Jeffrey Epstein.
位于华盛顿的波比负责对杰弗里·爱泼斯坦的调查。她曾在伦敦担任教育编辑，报道中国对英国及海外学校和大学的影响。
格林尼治标准时间晚上7点42分，美国空域关闭导致1.7万航班被取消，华盛顿方面称这是由于一次升级工程——拆除铜线所致。
As Education Editor in London, she reported on Chinese influence on British and overseas schools and universities 7:42pm GMT The US airspace shutdown that led to 17,000 cancelled flights was caused by an upgrade to remove copper wire, Washington has said.
当局称，一项计划在偏远的联邦航空管理局（FAA）设施用光纤电缆取代“旧铜线”的升级触发了崩溃，几乎影响了整个网络。
A planned upgrade replacing “old copper wire” with fibre-optic cable at a remote Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) facility triggered a collapse that affected almost the entire network, the authorities said.
肖恩·达菲在周六的新闻发布会上说，崩溃是通信线路中“旧设备”导致的，并坚决否认是网络攻击。
Sean Duffy, the US transport secretary, said in a press conference on Saturday that the collapse had been the result of “old equipment” in communication lines, as he emphatically ruled out a cyber-attack.
“这是网络攻击吗？有外国国家攻击了这个网络吗？答案是：我们不认为是，”他表示。“这不是外国行为者。”
“Was this a cyber-attack? Did some foreign nation attack this network? The answer to that is: we don’t believe so,” he said. “It wasn’t a foreign actor.”
他补充说：“我们正在确定……是我们自身的失误，还是用户错误或承包商L3哈里斯的安装错误，亦或是他们安装了有缺陷的路由器？我们尚未确定故障原因。”
He added: “We’re working to determine ... whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error or installer error from [contractor] L3Harris, or did they install a faulty router? We haven’t determined what the fault was.”
系统关闭使美国各地机场的乘客被困。FAA于周五下午约3点45分（格林尼治时间晚上8点45分）下达了罕见的“地面停飞”，暂停所有美国航班，这是自2001年9月11日恐怖袭击以来的第二次。
The system shutdown stranded passengers in airports across the US The FAA ordered a rare “ground stop” at around 3.45pm (8.45pm GMT) on Friday, suspending all US flights for only the second time since the Sept 11, 2001 terror attacks.
虽然FAA最终在周五晚上约8点15分（格林尼治时间凌晨1点15分）解除地面停飞，但乘客的困扰仍未结束。
Though the FAA eventually lifted the ground stop on Friday night around 8.15pm (1.15am GMT), the disruption for passengers was far from over.
停飞导致周五超过1.2万航班被取消，周六又有约5千航班取消。
More than 12,000 flights were cancelled on Friday as a result of the stoppage, with a further 5,000 cancellations on Saturday.
达菲先生未排除在感恩节旅行高峰期间可能出现进一步的中断，但坚持认为“最糟糕的已经过去”。
Mr Duffy refused to rule out further disruption ahead of the busy Thanksgiving travel period, but insisted “the worst is behind us”.
他说，仍然安装在美国大部分航班通信网络中的铜线“已经是如此老旧，以至于被停产，这意味着该线路将被关闭”。
He said that the copper, still installed across much of the US flight communications network, was “such an old wire that it was being discontinued, meaning that line was going to get shut down”.
“所以我们必须把它从旧铜线切换到光纤，”杜菲说。他补充说，“无论是承包商失误还是设备故障”，系统在升级过程中出现故障，导致美国空中交通管制数据通信系统超负荷。
“So we had to switch it over from old copper – we had to bring it over to fibre,” Mr Duffy said. He added that “either through contractor error or a faulty piece of equipment”, the system malfunctioned during the upgrade and overloaded the system that enables data communication in US air traffic control.
杜菲说，这次故障使系统中的其他路由器也被淹没，联邦航空局决定暂停所有航班。
The breakdown flooded other routers in the system, Mr Duffy said, and the FAA had made the decision to halt all flights.
最初的停电引发了对潜在外国干预的担忧，美国国土安全部长马克韦恩·穆林在周五晚上表示，美国政府“没有排除任何可能”。
The blackout initially stoked fears of potential foreign interference, with Markwayne Mullin, the US homeland security secretary saying on Friday night that the US government was “not ruling anything out”.
联邦调查局在周五晚上调查了可能的网络攻击，但确认这不是根本原因，杜菲证实。他说，联邦调查局局长卡什·帕特尔以及美国国防部曾“非常担心”可能的攻击，但随后得到保证，这不是“来自外国的威胁”。
The FBI had investigated the possibility it was a cyber-attack on Friday night but concluded that was not the root cause, Mr Duffy confirmed. He said Kash Patel, the FBI director, as well as the US department of war, had been “very concerned” about a potential attack, but had later been assured it was not “a threat from a foreign nation”.
由于停运，周五和周六共取消了超过1.7万架航班。杜菲说，特朗普政府将启动对这次崩溃原因的调查，但不会披露引发事故的设施的具体位置。
More than 17,000 flights were cancelled on Friday and Saturday as a result of the stoppage Mr Duffy said the Trump administration would launch a probe into the cause of the meltdown, but would not disclose the exact location of the facility that sparked it.
他似乎将部分责任指向负责大部分联邦航空局电信基础设施的私人承包商L3哈里斯。
He appeared to point the finger for some of the blame at L3Harris, the private contractor that oversees much of the FAA’s telecommunications infrastructure.
“坦率地说，我们会追究责任，”杜菲说。“我们的许多承包商、许多合作伙伴，他们拿了我们的钱，却提供了极差的服务。”他表示，约70%的原用于航班数据的铜线网络已经被光纤取代。国会最近批准的125亿美元（约合9.5亿美元）资金计划将加速这一进程。周五，穆林先生表示，新设备正在使系统不堪重负。
“Frankly, we’re going to hold people accountable,” Mr Duffy said. “Many of our contractors, many of our partners, they take our money and they provide really poor service to us.”Around 70 per cent of the previous copper wire network used for flight data has already been replaced with fibre-optic, he said. A recent $12.5bn (£9.5bn) funding package from Congress will accelerate the process. On Friday, Mr Mullin suggested that new equipment was overwhelming the system.
他说：“那种新设备、新技术，正在使旧系统不堪重负，这就是为什么达菲部长非常明确地表示：这种拼凑的系统行不通。我们需要一个完整的系统。”民航管理局和纳茨周六均未能说明，英国向空中交通管制员传输数据所使用的电缆类型。
He said: “That new equipment, new technology, it was overwhelming the older system, which is why Secretary Duffy made it very clear: the patchwork doesn’t work. We need one complete system.”Neither the Civil Aviation Authority nor Nats were able to say on Saturday what type of cabling was used to relay data to air traffic controllers in Britain.
但一名纳茨发言人表示：“自2003年以来，我们一直在所有建筑中定期现代化和更换电缆。
But a Nats spokesman said: “We have routinely modernised and replaced cabling across all our buildings since 2003.
“我们位于汉普郡的企业和技术中心设有总部和培训学院。我们的空中交通管制服务由斯旺威克和普雷斯威克的站点管理。”
“Our corporate and technical centre in Hampshire is home to our head office and training college. Our air traffic control services are managed from sites in Swanwick and Prestwick.”