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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced that the Federal Aviation Administration had ended the nationwide ground stop at 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time on November 13 2026 after resolving a communications failure that had halted all domestic departures for safety reasons. Duffy described the outage as stemming from an overload in the air traffic control system’s legacy infrastructure where old routers and switches were overwhelmed possibly during integration of new technology. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin who appeared alongside Duffy at a White House briefing stated there was no indication of a cyberattack or any nefarious activity and insisted the public had never been in danger during the event.
FlightAware data placed the impact at more than 8500 delayed flights and nearly 8000 cancellations on Friday while Reuters reported totals exceeding 6600 cancellations and 8600 delays with another 1500 flights already canceled for Sunday. Flightradar24 tracking showed more than 3500 aircraft already airborne when the ground stop began at approximately 3:54 p.m. Eastern Time forcing controllers to divert some planes and allow others to reach their destinations. Newsweek estimated that roughly 1.5 million passengers were affected with many left scrambling for rebookings hotels and rental cars as the disruption unfolded.
The episode marked only the second nationwide ground stop since the immediate aftermath of the September 11 2001 attacks when all US flights were ordered down for security reasons according to AeroCorner analysis. In January 2023 a separate failure in the Notice to Air Missions system produced a 90-minute ground stop that resulted in more than 1000 cancellations as NPR reported drawing on FAA records. Cranfield University aviation professor Guy Gratton told BBC News that while the latest stoppage lasted more than twice as long as the 2023 event it remained far smaller in scale than the 2001 grounding.
Duffy told reporters that the outage involved the FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure network which serves as the backbone for communications between controllers and pilots as detailed in a WIRED examination of the incident. Mullin added that patches introduced into the aging system had contributed to the overload without compromising any flights that were already in progress. Forbes noted that inbound international flights were managed individually throughout the stoppage while some departures from airports such as San Francisco were permitted to resume on a limited basis before full restoration.
At a joint appearance with Mullin Duffy warned that unwinding the backlog would take time and could disrupt airline schedules for several days a prediction echoed by analysts cited in Nikkei Asia coverage. Senator Richard Blumenthal called for a prompt investigation into the causes according to NPR while both cabinet secretaries met with President Donald Trump to discuss the technical failure and broader infrastructure needs. KOSU reported that US airlines would not be required to compensate stranded passengers because the carriers bore no responsibility for the FAA system outage.
The ground stop highlighted persistent challenges within the nation’s air traffic control framework including controller shortages and outdated equipment that a Government Accountability Office review had previously flagged as reported in Flightradar24 commentary. Delta American United and Southwest together accounted for the bulk of cancellations with each carrier pulling thousands of flights according to Flightradar24 tallies. Recovery operations continued into the weekend as technicians worked to ensure stability across the affected communications network.
