U.S. Grounds Departures After Major Air‑Traffic Communications Failure

Overview

• The FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop on Friday, Nov. 13, after technicians identified a telecommunications interruption that affected all 22 regional air‑traffic control centers.
• The ground stop lasted more than four hours before the FAA began a phased resumption of departures, but recovery was slow and thousands of flights remained delayed or canceled into the weekend.
• Federal investigators have found no confirmed evidence of a cyberattack so far, and officials said technicians are still probing the precise cause while sector sources point to simultaneous faults in radar, radio frequencies or a private telecom network operated by L3Harris.
• Flight‑tracking services and airlines reported large disruptions: trackers gave estimates ranging from roughly 7,000 to nearly 10,000 flights delayed or canceled overall, and thousands of cancellations and crew or aircraft repositioning issues persisted the next day.
• The outage renewed urgent calls from the FAA and the White House for major Congress funding to replace aging switches, routers and radio links that regulators say can fail under heavy loads and create international ripple effects during busy travel periods.