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TL;DR
The FAA held departures at U.S. airports for about four hours and 23 minutes on Nov. 13 after reported instability in radar and communications at air traffic facilities. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed overloaded legacy equipment, while officials said they had seen no evidence of a cyberattack; the precise failure and its cause remain under investigation.
The Federal Aviation Administration halted departures at airports across the United States for about four hours and 23 minutes on Friday, Nov. 13, after reported radar and communications instability at air traffic facilities. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said legacy telecom equipment overloaded with data and delivered inconsistent information; officials have not released a written root-cause report, and the FAA described its account as preliminary.
The FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center issued its nationwide order at 3:54 p.m. Eastern Time, directing aircraft operators to keep departing traffic on the ground. The advisory cited “extraordinary circumstances” and safety. Its event time began at 3:53 p.m. The FAA’s cancellation notice gives 8:16 p.m. ET as the stop’s end; Duffy said the airspace reopened at 8:15 p.m. The difference reflects the times given in separate accounts.
The disruption had appeared first in Chicago. At 3:21 p.m., the FAA warned of arrival delays and airborne holding at O’Hare because of equipment issues. It stopped departures to O’Hare at 3:28 p.m. over “COMMS ISSUES”; Midway followed at 3:31 p.m. Duffy said the nationwide problem began at 3:36 p.m. The FAA said communication issues affected multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers and that technicians were investigating.
Duffy said more than 3,500 aircraft were airborne when the national stop began, falling to fewer than 400 by 8 p.m. Medevac, life-saving cargo and law-enforcement flights were permitted to continue. FAA advisories described extended flight-plan validity and coordinated releases as facilities recovered. FlightAware counted 9,159 cancellations within, into or out of the U.S. on Friday and 3,515 more by 7:58 a.m. ET Saturday. Those are all-day totals, not counts attributed solely to the ground stop.
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 Air Travel
A nationwide departure hold affects far more than flights scheduled during its hours. Aircraft and crews can end up in the wrong places, connecting itineraries break, and airlines may continue cancelling or delaying flights after the underlying restriction ends. The reported thousands of aircraft already in the air also show why controllers had to manage arrivals and airborne traffic while limiting new departures.
The disruption extended beyond U.S. airports. Eurocontrol suspended U.S.-bound departures from member states between 22:00 UTC on Nov. 13 and 05:00 UTC on Nov. 14, at the FAA’s request, according to reporting cited in the source material. Sydney Airport held U.S.-bound flights, and Air Canada cancelled flights between Canada and the United States, according to the same account. These measures illustrate how a U.S. air traffic problem can affect international schedules and travelers.
For the traveling public, the available figures do not identify how many cancellations or delays were directly caused by the ground stop. Friday’s FlightAware number covers all cancellations in the stated geographic scope, so it should not be read as a tally of the stop’s direct effects. The distinction matters when measuring the incident’s scale and judging how quickly services recovered.
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From Chicago Delays to Nationwide Holds
The FAA advisories trace an escalation from local disruption to a national restriction. Before the equipment notices, some Friday delays cited weather or traffic volume. The first equipment-related warning concerned O’Hare; soon afterward, departures to Chicago were halted and the Command Center activated a diversion recovery tool for all airports. By 3:54 p.m., the order applied nationwide, with inbound international flights to be handled case by case.
During the stop, the Command Center warned of airborne holding at any airport and extended flight-plan drop times at en route centers to 240 minutes. At 5:46 p.m., an advisory said flights could depart as facilities recovered through coordination with the Command Center. By 7:37 p.m., some coastal facilities were releasing some international departures. The nationwide stop was then cancelled, though local airport and airline restrictions continued into the night as carriers worked through aircraft and crew disruptions.
The FAA’s 2023-commissioned review counted 21 en route centers, which largely manage aircraft between airports. The source material characterizes the affected equipment as legacy analog telecom switches and routers based on Duffy’s account. That description is not, by itself, a published technical finding establishing the specific component or failure sequence.
““We experienced instability for our radar and our communications.””
— Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy
The Failure’s Root Cause Is Pending
The FAA has not published a written root-cause report. Its Friday statement called the information preliminary and subject to change. Duffy attributed the trouble to overloaded analog telecom switches and routers, but the source material does not include an independent technical report identifying the failed equipment, the overload’s trigger, or the exact path from the initial Chicago problems to the nationwide hold.
Mullin said officials had seen no evidence of a cyberattack and described the event as apparently mechanical, while saying they would not rule cyber activity out. Duffy and the maker of the FAA’s new SMART air-traffic tool said SMART was not connected to the failed equipment. The available material does not provide technical documentation supporting those statements. It also does not establish whether a single fault or several related problems caused the instability.
There is also no confirmed, stop-specific total for affected passengers, delayed flights or cancellations in the supplied material. The tens of thousands of stranded passengers figure is attributed to Duffy, while FlightAware’s cancellation totals cover all cancellations in their stated periods, not only those caused by the FAA order.
FAA Review and Modernization Questions
FAA technicians were investigating when the agency issued its initial statement. The next key development is a detailed account of the technical failure, including which facilities and equipment were affected, what triggered the instability, and how operations were restored. Until that information is published, the agency’s initial explanation should be treated as an official account under investigation, not a final finding.
Duffy warned that similar disruptions could occur again without a new system, saying, “You will have more of these” unless Congress funds modernization. He has called for $50 billion, according to the source material. That is his stated funding request and assessment of future risk; the supplied information does not establish that Congress has approved the spending or that modernization would prevent every such incident.
Travelers should check directly with their airlines for current flight status and rebooking details, since local restrictions and schedule disruptions continued after the nationwide order ended. A published FAA investigation and further operational updates would clarify the failure and the scale of its effects.
Key Questions
How long did the nationwide ground stop last?
The FAA advisories place the event from about 3:53 p.m. to 8:16 p.m. ET on Nov. 13, or approximately 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 and attributed the problem to legacy analog telecom switches and routers that overloaded with data. The FAA has not published a written root-cause report, so the precise failure remains unconfirmed.
Was the ground stop caused by a cyberattack?
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said officials had seen no evidence of a cyberattack and that the problem appeared mechanical, but he said that possibility had not been ruled out.
How many flights were cancelled because of the stop?
The supplied FlightAware figures report 9,159 cancellations within, into or out of the United States on Friday and 3,515 more by 7:58 a.m. ET Saturday. They include cancellations for the full day and are not a count of cancellations caused only by the ground stop.
Could another nationwide stop happen?
Duffy warned that further disruptions could occur without system modernization. The source material does not provide a technical assessment of recurrence risk, and the FAA has not released its final findings.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
