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TL;DR
The FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop on Nov. 13 after communications and radar instability affected air traffic facilities, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FAA advisories. Officials said they had seen no evidence of a cyberattack, but no written root-cause report has been released.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop on Friday, Nov. 13, after communications and radar instability affected air traffic control facilities, delaying departures across the United States for about four hours and 23 minutes. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said aging telecommunications equipment overloaded with data was involved, while officials said the cause was still under investigation and they had not ruled out a cyberattack.
The FAA Command Center issued its nationwide order at 3:54 p.m. Eastern Time, directing departing aircraft to remain on the ground and saying inbound international flights would be handled case by case. The agency cited communication issues affecting multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers. Its initial statement described the information as preliminary and subject to change.
The Command Center’s advisories show that equipment problems were affecting Chicago-area traffic before the national order. At 3:21 p.m., it cited equipment issues in warnings about delays and airborne holding at O’Hare. At 3:28 p.m., it stopped departures to O’Hare, citing a communications issue; Chicago Midway followed at 3:31 p.m. Duffy said the nationwide instability began at 3:36 p.m.
Duffy said more than 3,500 aircraft were airborne when the national stop began, falling to fewer than 400 by 8 p.m. Medevac flights, life-saving cargo and law-enforcement flights were permitted to continue. The FAA cancelled the nationwide order at about 8:16 p.m., though separate airport and airline restrictions continued as carriers reorganized aircraft and crews.
FAA ground stop · Nov 13, 2026 · times ET (UTC−5)
Unreliable data, a full stop, a slow restart
What the FAA Command Center’s advisories and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy describe, step by step.
US airspace (schematic)
plane (schematic)airports
3,500+ planes in the airwhen the stop began, Duffy says Fewer than 400still airborne by 8 p.m. ET, Duffy says Restartground stop cancelled; flights resume slowly
What the FAA and Duffy said
- 3:21 p.m.Chicago O’Hare: arrival delays “due to equipment issues”FAA advisory 106
- 3:36 p.m.Radar and communications unstable at centers and TRACONs nationwideDuffy
- 3:54 p.m.“All airports are ground stopped”; departures heldFAA advisory 111
- 4:20 p.m.Airborne holding expected at “any and all airports”FAA advisory 116
- 8 p.m.Fewer than 400 planes still airborne, down from 3,500+Duffy
- 8:16 p.m.Nationwide ground stop cancelled; Duffy: airspace reopened at 8:15 p.m.FAA advisory 005
Sources: FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center advisories 106, 111 and 116 (Nov 13) and 005 (Nov 14, 2026, UTC dates); Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy at the White House briefing, Nov 13 (transcript: Roll Call Factba.se) and on X (as quoted by Fox Business); BBC News, Nov 14. Durations: own calculation from advisory event times (2026: 20:53 to 01:16 UTC; 2023: 12:20 to 14:00 UTC). The radar picture is a schematic, not real traffic.
Graphic: Powered by Thorsten Meyer AI
How the Stop Disrupted Flights
The disruption reached beyond aircraft waiting to depart. The FAA’s advisories describe airborne holding, extended flight-plan drop times and coordination with recovering facilities before flights could be released. The incident illustrates how problems with communications and radar at air traffic control centers can interrupt departures across the country, even when the system has not suffered a total blackout.
FlightAware counted 9,159 cancellations within, into or out of the United States on Friday, and 3,515 more by 7:58 a.m. ET on Saturday. Those figures cover all cancellations recorded in those periods, not only those attributed to the ground stop, so they should not be treated as a direct count of cancellations caused by this event. The stoppage also affected international operations: the source material says Eurocontrol suspended US-bound departures from its member states at the FAA’s request, while reports described holds and cancellations on routes between the United States and other countries.
For travelers, the immediate effects included missed departures and continuing schedule changes after the national order ended. For airlines and businesses that depend on air freight, delays can also affect aircraft positioning, crew schedules and cargo movement. The scale of the disruption makes the underlying technical cause and the FAA’s plans to address it matters of public and operational concern.
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From Chicago Delays to a National Order
The FAA’s public advisories trace the problem from local disruption to a nationwide response. After O’Hare and Midway restrictions, the Command Center activated a diversion recovery tool for all airports at 3:30 p.m. By 4:20 p.m., it warned operators to expect airborne holding at any airport. A minute later, it extended flight-plan drop times at all en route centers to 240 minutes, citing a nationwide communications failure.
At 5:46 p.m., the FAA said the stop remained in effect because of a communications failure and that flights would be released as en route facilities recovered, in coordination with the Command Center. At 7:37 p.m., it reported that some coastal facilities had begun releasing some international departures. The national order was cancelled at 8:16 p.m., according to the event time in the FAA advisory; Duffy gave the reopening time as 8:15 p.m.
Duffy described the equipment involved as older analog telecommunications switches and routers that became overloaded with data and supplied inconsistent information. He said the system did not lose all radar or telecommunications. The supplied source material says an FAA-commissioned 2023 review counted 21 en route centers, which manage aircraft traveling between airports.
“We didn’t lose all telecom we didn’t lose all radar.”
— Sean Duffy, U.S. transportation secretary
The Root Cause Is Still Open
Officials had not published a written root-cause report in the supplied material. Duffy attributed the instability to aging switches and routers becoming overloaded, but the precise failure sequence, the equipment involved at each facility and why the data overload occurred remain unclear. The FAA’s early statement was explicitly preliminary.
Mullin said officials had seen no evidence of a cyberattack and that the incident appeared mechanically driven, but he also said they would not rule out that possibility. Duffy and the maker of the FAA’s new SMART air traffic tool said SMART was not connected to the failed equipment. Those statements address the proposed explanations, but do not amount to a final technical finding. The source material also does not establish the full number of passengers affected or isolate how many flight cancellations were caused specifically by the ground stop.
Investigation and System Funding
The FAA said technicians were investigating, but the supplied information gives no date for a final report or a detailed account of corrective work. The next key information will be an agency explanation of the failure, the equipment and facilities affected, and any steps taken to reduce the chance of a repeat. Airlines were still managing aircraft and crew disruptions after the national order was lifted.
Duffy argued that the episode showed a need to replace aging air traffic infrastructure and said he wanted $50 billion for a new system. He warned that similar incidents could happen again without investment. That is his assessment, not a confirmed forecast; funding approval, project details and a replacement timeline were not specified in the supplied material.
Key Questions
Why did the FAA stop departures nationwide?
The FAA cited communications issues affecting multiple air traffic control centers. Duffy said radar and communications became unstable after older telecommunications switches and routers were overloaded with data.
How long did the nationwide ground stop last?
The FAA advisory gives an event start around 3:53 p.m. ET and cancellation at 8:16 p.m. ET on Nov. 13, a span of about four hours and 23 minutes. Duffy said the airspace reopened at 8:15 p.m.
Was the disruption caused by a cyberattack?
Officials said they had seen no evidence of a cyberattack and that the event appeared mechanically driven. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin also said officials were not ruling a cyberattack out; no final written cause report had been released in the supplied material.
Did the FAA’s SMART AI tool cause the outage?
No connection was reported. Duffy and the maker of SMART said the tool was not connected to the equipment involved in the failure.
Were all flights stopped?
The order grounded departing traffic nationwide, but the FAA’s message said inbound international flights would be handled case by case. Duffy said medevac, life-saving cargo and law-enforcement flights were allowed to operate.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
