FAA Ground Stop: Duffy Blames Cable Upgrade, Controllers Push Back

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a rare nationwide ground stop on November 13, 2026, lasting about four hours and grounding more than 3,500 flights. An estimated 1.5 million travelers were disrupted. It was the third such event in U.S. history, after a 2023 incident and the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the cause was a contractor, L3Harris, replacing copper wiring with fiber optic cable at a remote location. The work triggered communications failures across facilities managing national airspace, he said. Duffy said the problem was isolated to one facility, that systems came back online once the work was identified, and that the shutdown was not a cyberattack. He also said a contractor was replacing a router when something went wrong.

Air traffic controllers are not convinced. Washington Examiner homeland security reporter Anna Giaritelli told CNN she spoke with 60 controllers. "None of them are buying what he said," she said. The controllers have not publicly offered an alternative explanation for the outage.

The government's messaging has compounded the confusion. A second press conference on Saturday started late due to technical difficulties. CNN reported that the muddled messaging added to passenger anxiety and sparked conspiracy theories about the real cause of the chaos.

If controllers are right, the actual cause of the shutdown remains unexplained, and the same outdated equipment could fail again. The credibility gap also complicates the administration's push for FAA funding, which critics are already calling a shakedown.

What specifically the controllers believe caused the ground stop, and why they reject Duffy's account, has not been publicly detailed. Officials have not said whether pre-existing system vulnerabilities played a role. The proposed $50 billion in additional FAA funding and what it would fix also remain unclear.