TL;DR
The FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop on Nov. 13 after radar and communications became unstable at air traffic facilities, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. The stop lasted about four hours and 23 minutes; officials said they had seen no evidence of a cyberattack, but the FAA has not published a written root-cause report.
The FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center issued its nationwide ground stop at 3:54 p.m. Eastern Time, citing “extraordinary circumstances” and safety. Its advisories show the event began at 3:53 p.m. and the stop was cancelled at 8:16 p.m. Duffy said the airspace reopened at 8:15 p.m. The advisory times put the stop at about four hours and 23 minutes.
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Duffy said the FAA experienced instability in radar and communications at en route centers and terminal radar approach control facilities, known as TRACONs, beginning at about 3:36 p.m. He attributed inconsistent data to overloaded older analog telecommunications switches and routers. He said the agency did not lose all radar or telecommunications. The first FAA advisory citing equipment issues that afternoon concerned arrivals at Chicago O’Hare; departures to O’Hare and then Midway were restricted before the nationwide order.
More than 3,500 aircraft were airborne when the national stop began, Duffy said, falling to fewer than 400 by 8 p.m. The FAA allowed medevac, life-saving cargo and law enforcement flights to continue. The stop held departures, while some arriving aircraft were managed through airborne holding and diversions. FlightAware counted 9,159 cancellations within, into or out of the United States on Friday and 3,515 more by 7:58 a.m. Saturday. Those are all-day cancellation totals and do not isolate flights cancelled because of the ground stop.
Disruption Reached Every Airport
A nationwide departure halt can disrupt travel well beyond the hours when the order is active. Aircraft and crews may be left out of position, and passengers can face cancellations or missed connections as airlines work through a backlog. The FAA’s stop was a safety measure while operations were unstable; the scale of the cancellation figures shows the disruption carried into Saturday morning.
The episode also put attention on the reliability of communications and radar systems used to manage U.S. air traffic. Duffy warned that similar disruptions could happen again without investment in replacement systems and called for $50 billion for modernization. That is his assessment and funding request; it does not establish the cause of this failure or guarantee that new funding would prevent future outages.
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From Chicago Delays to a National Stop
FAA advisories point to equipment problems at Chicago-area airports before the nationwide order. At 3:21 p.m., the Command Center reported equipment-related arrival delays and airborne holding at O’Hare. At 3:28 p.m., it stopped departures to O’Hare from U.S. airports and several in Canada, citing communications issues; Midway followed at 3:31 p.m. Duffy placed the wider radar and communications instability at 3:36 p.m.
The FAA’s advisories set the nationwide stop’s start and end at 3:53 p.m. Friday and 8:16 p.m., respectively. BBC News described it as the longest nationwide ground stop since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The source material says the only other such stop since then was in January 2023 and lasted about one hour and 40 minutes. These historical comparisons are attributed to BBC News and calculations from FAA advisory times.
““We didn’t lose all telecom we didn’t lose all radar.””
— Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy
Cause Still Awaits a Report
No written FAA root-cause report had been published in the source material. Duffy blamed overloaded older telecommunications equipment for inconsistent data, but the precise technical failure and the sequence that produced the nationwide instability remain unclear. Mullin said officials had seen no evidence of a cyberattack while also saying they would not rule one out.
Duffy and the maker of the FAA’s new SMART traffic tool said SMART was not connected to the failed equipment. The available information does not provide an independent technical review or detail how investigators reached their conclusions. FlightAware’s daily cancellation totals also do not identify how many cancellations were directly caused by the stop.
FAA Findings and System Funding
The next key development is a detailed FAA account of what failed, how the instability spread from early Chicago-area equipment advisories to a nationwide stop, and what corrective steps the agency will take. Until that report is available, the public explanation remains based on officials’ statements and the Command Center’s operational advisories.
Congress would have to act on Duffy’s proposed $50 billion system investment. Airlines and passengers will also see the practical effects in the days after the event as carriers address cancellations and disrupted schedules. The available source material does not specify when the FAA will publish its findings or when Congress may consider the funding request.
Key Questions
How long did the FAA ground stop last?
The FAA advisories show a start time of 3:53 p.m. ET Friday, Nov. 13, and cancellation at 8:16 p.m., for about four hours and 23 minutes. Duffy said airspace reopened at 8:15 p.m.
What did officials say failed?
Duffy said radar and communications became unstable at FAA en route centers and TRACON facilities. He attributed inconsistent data to overloaded older analog telecommunications switches and routers. A written root-cause report was not available in the source material.
Was the ground stop caused by a cyberattack?
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said officials had seen “zero evidence” of a cyberattack and that the problem appeared mechanically driven, but said they would not rule one out.
How many flights were cancelled?
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 Saturday. Those totals cover all cancellations in those periods and do not show how many resulted from the FAA stop.
When will the FAA explain the cause?
The source material does not give a date for a written FAA report. The exact technical cause and any agency response beyond the statements cited remain unclear.
Source: Thorsten Meyer AI
