It was stated that all of air traffic was grounded for the first time since 9/11 so that sounds big. What do you think it was due to?
Oh it was a big deal, but it was a ground stop. A ground stop is different than closing the airspace, which is what happened on 9/11. On 9/11 enroute aircraft had to land at the nearest airport. For example, at the airport in Gander (the first airport in NA that is enroute for most aircraft coming from Europe) there were 42 aircraft that were forced to land there. It was crazy because no one was allowed to deplane until all passengers were processed and threats assessed. That meant there were aircraft on the tarmac that were running out of fuel and whose lavatories were over flowing.
So, no Tucker ... it wasnt the same as 9/11 because with a ground stop enroute aircraft can still continue to their destination airport. Also ...Tucker ... to say that the FAA and CAA systems are completely separate ... that is a gross over simplification and not really true.
Based on the info we have received from the FAA the outage was due to a cascading database failure on both the primary and redundant platform. The reason for that could be ... any number of things, but was probably due to aging infrastructure and/or human error around a planned maintenance period. That makes sense to me.
Could it have been a cyber attack and they just arent telling us? Possibly ... cant rule it out, but I seriously doubt it. My company (Collins Aerospace/Raytheon) wouldve had to be informed by the FAA so that we could conduct a investigation of our systems that support the FAA, and that hasnt been requested or proactively done (that I can say for certain).
You need to understand that these systems mostly operate on closed infrastructure, so they arent open to the internet or any outside networks. Any cyber attack would have to be done locally, and I cant even begin to stress how ridiculous the security is around these facilities. We bid a recent FAA contract (current incumbent is Harris) where we wouldve had to build a Operations Center in our Annapolis facility. The security component was extensive. The FAA program employees couldnt even share break room/bathroom facilities with non-program employees.
Im babbling now ... so what do I think happened? I think it was a planned maintenance that went terribly wrong for some reason. I fully expect we will see a NOTAM RFP in the next 12 to 18 months to completely replace/update that system.