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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. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy described overloaded legacy equipment, while Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said officials had found no evidence of a cyberattack but had not ruled one out. The FAA has not published a written root-cause report.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop on Friday, Nov. 13, holding most departures at US airports for about four hours and 23 minutes after communications problems affected air traffic control facilities. The FAA said technicians were investigating; Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy described instability involving radar and communications equipment, but officials have not published a written account establishing the failure’s root cause.
The FAA Command Center issued its nationwide advisory at 3:54 p.m. Eastern time, directing departing traffic to remain on the ground and saying inbound international flights would be handled case by case. The advisory cited “extraordinary circumstances” and safety. The FAA later recorded the cancellation as beginning at 8:16 p.m.; Duffy said the airspace reopened at 8:15 p.m. The times indicate a stop of roughly four hours and 23 minutes.
Problems had appeared earlier in Chicago. FAA advisories cited equipment issues and communications problems affecting arrivals and departures at O’Hare and Midway. Duffy said the nationwide disruption began at 3:36 p.m., when radar and communications became unstable at en route centers and approach control facilities around the country. He said legacy analog switches and routers were overloaded with data and delivered inconsistent information. He also said the system did not lose all radar or telecommunications capability.
The agency’s advisories documented operational adjustments as facilities recovered. They warned of airborne holding, extended the period that flight plans would remain active, and later said flights could resume in coordination with the Command Center. Medevac, life-saving cargo and law enforcement flights were permitted to continue, according to Duffy. The FAA described its initial public account as preliminary and subject to change.
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 Travel
A nationwide departure hold can affect far more than the flights waiting at airport gates. Aircraft and crews may end up out of position, while delays can carry into later departures and the following day. The disruption also reached international operations: Eurocontrol suspended US-bound departures from its member states at the FAA’s request, according to a notice reported by Xinhua. BBC News reported that Sydney Airport held US-bound flights and Air Canada cancelled services between Canada and the United States.
FlightAware counted 9,159 cancellations within, into or out of the United States on Friday, and 3,515 more by 7:58 a.m. Eastern time Saturday. Those totals cover all cancellations during the stated periods; they are not a count solely of flights cancelled because of the ground stop. For travellers, the scale of the wider disruption means a flight that was not directly held could still be affected by aircraft, crew or airport scheduling. The figures also show why reliable communications between air traffic facilities matter to passengers and businesses that rely on air travel.
Duffy warned that similar disruptions could recur without investment in a replacement system and called for $50 billion in funding. That is his assessment and funding request, not a finding in a published technical investigation. The immediate impact is clear, but the relationship between the reported equipment problems and the full extent of cancellations still requires careful distinction.
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From Chicago Advisories to Nationwide Halt
FAA Command Center records show the trouble developing over roughly half an hour before the nationwide order. Earlier advisories cited weather and traffic at some airports. At 3:21 p.m., an alert cited equipment issues and warned of delays and airborne holding at O’Hare. At 3:28 p.m., the FAA stopped departures to O’Hare from across the United States and several Canadian airports, listing “equipment / outage” and “comms issues.” Midway followed at 3:31 p.m.
At 3:54 p.m., the Command Center issued the national stop, with the advisory’s event time listed as 3:53 p.m. At 4:20 p.m., it warned that aircraft could be held for airports nationwide. A minute later, it extended flight-plan drop times across en route centers to 240 minutes, citing a nationwide communications failure. At 5:46 p.m., the stop remained in effect while facilities recovered; at 7:37 p.m., the FAA said some coastal facilities had begun releasing international departures. The nationwide advisory was cancelled at 8:16 p.m., though airport- and airline-specific restrictions continued later as carriers worked through the disruption.
The FAA’s nationwide ground stop was an operational order, not a statement that every aircraft was forced to land. Duffy said more than 3,500 aircraft were airborne when it began and fewer than 400 remained in the air by 8 p.m. The Command Center’s advisories and officials’ comments provide a timeline and preliminary description, but they do not amount to a final technical explanation.
““We didn’t lose all telecom we didn’t lose all radar.””
— Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy
The Cause Has Not Been Established
The FAA has not released a written root-cause report, and its initial statement was marked preliminary. Duffy attributed the instability to overloaded legacy switches and routers, but the available source material does not include a published technical analysis confirming the precise failure, how it developed, or which components were responsible.
Mullin said officials had seen no evidence of a cyberattack and that the failure appeared mechanical, while cautioning that investigators had not ruled out other explanations. Duffy and the developer of the FAA’s new SMART air-traffic tool said SMART was not connected to the equipment that failed. That addresses one suggested link, but does not by itself establish the full cause of the disruption.
It is also not yet possible to assign every cancellation or delay to the ground stop. FlightAware’s totals include cancellations for all reasons during the specified periods. The precise number of passengers affected, the complete operational costs, and any eventual changes to equipment or procedures have not been established in the cited material.
FAA Investigation and Funding Debate
The FAA said its technicians were investigating, but the available information does not give a publication date for a final report. A technical account would need to clarify what failed, how facilities communicated during the outage, why the system became unstable, and what steps could reduce the chance of a repeat. Until the agency releases further findings, the cause should be treated as unresolved rather than as a confirmed cyberattack or a fully diagnosed equipment failure.
Duffy has said he wants Congress to provide $50 billion for a new system and warned that disruptions could happen again without such investment. The source material does not specify a congressional timetable, approved funding, or a detailed implementation plan. Travellers should check directly with airlines for individual flight status and rebooking information, since the FAA’s national stop ended but airline and airport effects continued into the night and Saturday.
Key Questions
How long did the FAA ground stop last?
The FAA advisory times show the nationwide stop running from about 3:53 p.m. to 8:16 p.m. Eastern time on Nov. 13, or roughly four hours and 23 minutes. Duffy said airspace reopened at 8:15 p.m.
What caused the nationwide ground stop?
The FAA said communications issues affected multiple air traffic control centers. Duffy described instability involving radar and communications and said legacy switches and routers were overloaded. The FAA has not published a final root-cause report, so the technical cause is not yet independently established in the material provided.
Was the disruption caused by a cyberattack?
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said officials had found “zero evidence” of a cyberattack and that the problem appeared mechanically driven. He also said officials were not ruling one out. No confirmed cyberattack was reported in the source material.
How many flights were cancelled?
FlightAware counted 9,159 cancellations within, into or out of the United States on Friday, plus 3,515 by 7:58 a.m. Eastern time Saturday. These are all-cause totals for those periods, not counts limited to cancellations directly caused by the ground stop.
Could another nationwide stop happen?
Duffy warned that more disruptions could occur without funding for a replacement system and requested $50 billion from Congress. That is his warning and funding proposal; no future outage has been confirmed, and the FAA has not released a final investigation or a timetable for system replacement.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
