Flights halted at three US airports as watchdog warns over hacking threat

Senator Ron Wyden calls for swift action after GAO report finds systems guiding US aircraft vulnerable to interference

A congressional watchdog has warned the systems guiding US aircraft are open to interference and deception as flights into three busy airports in the country’s north east US were halted by a radio equipment problem.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a ground stop at about 10am on Monday for Newark Liberty international, Philadelphia international and Teterboro airports, saying some radio frequencies at the Philadelphia terminal radar approach control (Tracon) were affected until the early afternoon. Arrivals and departures at Newark were delayed, and the agency has not said what caused the outage.