Overview
- The FAA ordered a nationwide suspension of all departures on Friday, November 13, 2026 and lifted the ground stop at 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time after technicians restored communications.
- Flight trackers and airlines reported thousands of delays and cancellations with FlightAware and other services showing several thousand flights affected and tens of thousands of scheduled operations at risk.
- Preliminary reporting cites a private communications-network restart as the probable technical trigger, federal investigators are probing that hypothesis, and security officials say there is no current evidence of a deliberate attack.
- The reopening is gradual and many flights remain delayed or cancelled while airports and carriers re-sequence schedules and handle international arrivals case-by-case, and Mexico’s AFAC kept U.S.-bound departures grounded pending FAA authorization.
- The incident sharpened focus on the FAA’s dated equipment — officials described overloaded routers and inconsistent data — and the agency and White House have asked Congress for an additional $30.1 billion on top of $12.5 billion approved in 2025 to modernize the system.