Key Takeaways
- • The FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop for several hours on Friday, November 13, 2026, forcing airlines to delay and cancel thousands of flights after a communications problem affecting air-traffic control was detected.
- • FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the White House situation room and the broader national security apparatus were activated, and the FBI was on site investigating, though officials said there was no evidence of a cyberattack.
- • Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy attributed the outage to a contractor working for L3Harris who was switching telecom lines from legacy copper to fiber optics, which flooded routers with more than 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds.
- • Duffy said the department has not yet determined whether the fault lay with the router, installation error, or user error, and warned that accountability measures will follow.
- • L3Harris said it has completed more than 70% of the copper-to-fiber conversion and is supporting the FAA investigation.
Summary
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop for several hours on Friday, November 13, after a communications problem affecting air-traffic control spread rapidly through the system. The stop forced airlines to delay and cancel thousands of flights. Officials said the speed of the telecom failure was alarming enough to briefly draw in the highest levels of the federal government, but they stated there was no evidence of a cyberattack or other malicious activity.
During a press briefing on Saturday, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the White House situation room and the national security infrastructure were activated, and that the FBI had personnel at facilities to investigate. "I think we've all concluded that it's not a cyber issue," Bedford said. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said FBI Director Kash Patel, the director of national intelligence, and the Defense Department joined a conference call because officials were concerned about a possible cyberattack from another country. Duffy said no online chatter indicated a hacking attempt. Once the FAA isolated the location where the problem originated and took it offline, the system resumed normal operation.
According to Duffy, the disruption began when a contractor working for L3Harris was performing routine maintenance at a remote FAA location to convert telecommunication lines from old copper wire to fiber optics. The changeover caused routers across the air traffic control system to be flooded with more than 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds. Because this disrupted some radar feeds, the FAA ordered the ground stop to ensure safety. Duffy said the department has not determined whether the cause was user error, installation error by L3Harris, or a faulty router, and he said L3Harris owns the legacy network and is the prime contractor. He added that the department will hold responsible parties accountable and is working with major telecom providers including AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen to build a new architecture.
An L3Harris spokesperson said the company has been modernizing the National Airspace System's communications infrastructure in close coordination with the FAA and has completed more than 70% of the conversion to fiber optics. The company said it is supporting the FAA's investigation into the conditions that led to the November 13 ground stop.
During a press briefing on Saturday, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the White House situation room and the national security infrastructure were activated, and that the FBI had personnel at facilities to investigate. "I think we've all concluded that it's not a cyber issue," Bedford said. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said FBI Director Kash Patel, the director of national intelligence, and the Defense Department joined a conference call because officials were concerned about a possible cyberattack from another country. Duffy said no online chatter indicated a hacking attempt. Once the FAA isolated the location where the problem originated and took it offline, the system resumed normal operation.
According to Duffy, the disruption began when a contractor working for L3Harris was performing routine maintenance at a remote FAA location to convert telecommunication lines from old copper wire to fiber optics. The changeover caused routers across the air traffic control system to be flooded with more than 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds. Because this disrupted some radar feeds, the FAA ordered the ground stop to ensure safety. Duffy said the department has not determined whether the cause was user error, installation error by L3Harris, or a faulty router, and he said L3Harris owns the legacy network and is the prime contractor. He added that the department will hold responsible parties accountable and is working with major telecom providers including AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen to build a new architecture.
An L3Harris spokesperson said the company has been modernizing the National Airspace System's communications infrastructure in close coordination with the FAA and has completed more than 70% of the conversion to fiber optics. The company said it is supporting the FAA's investigation into the conditions that led to the November 13 ground stop.
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