FAA outage triggers nationwide ground stop: what we know so far

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop for all departing U.S. flights on November 13, 2026, after a communications outage knocked systems offline across the country. The FAA halt ran from 4:00 p.m. ET to 8:15 p.m. ET, but the disruption won’t end with the stop itself. Delays are likely to drag on for days. The outage hit all 22 FAA en route centers and led to 8,000 delays and 400 cancellations across domestic and international flights. If you’re flying, keep an eye on this.

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So far, officials say they haven’t found evidence of a cyberattack. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said investigators found no “chatter” or “footprints,” though they haven’t ruled that possibility out. They’re also looking into whether a software update played a role after a private communications network rebooted and then crashed. CBS reported that the L3Harris-operated link is under scrutiny, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, Department of Defense, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are all involved.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the FAA’s older switches, routers, and copper-line systems were swamped with data and started producing inconsistent information. That echoes the January 2023 Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) outage, which was triggered when a contractor deleted files. Officials say this was only the third nationwide U.S. ground stop, after September 11, 2001, and the 2023 NOTAM failure. They also said it wasn’t related to the Microsoft issues earlier in the week.

For updates, check with your airline and the FAA.

Author: Manuel Bosque

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