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FAA Lifts Nationwide Ground Stop as Officials See No Evidence of a Cyber Attack

RAGE Global · United States · Aviation · Developing · 6 min read

By Carlos KfouryPublished Updated

Slide 01 of 05

  1. Breaking, USA, 13 November 2026. Official, Duffy, Mullin. A dark map of the United States with a marker at Washington, D.C. labelled Reagan National, first reported. Ground stop lifted, 8:15 p.m. ET, as of 9 p.m. ET. Map: Natural Earth. Headline: "FAA lifts ground stop as Mullin sees zero evidence of a cyber attack." Officials say it appears mechanically driven. No root-cause report has been released.

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The Federal Aviation Administration lifted its nationwide ground stop on the evening of Friday 13 November 2026, after more than four hours in which no flight could depart from a U.S. airport. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed aging air traffic control equipment that "got overloaded." Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there is "zero evidence" that a cyber attack caused it, while stopping short of ruling anything out. No root-cause report has been released, and officials have not explained why the systems failed on an ordinary travel day. Flights are resuming, but cancellations and delays are running into the weekend.

Key takeaways

  • Lifted: the FAA ended the ground stop at about 8:15 p.m. ET on Friday, after more than four hours, according to news reports.
  • Stated cause: Duffy said routers and switches in the air traffic system were overloaded with data and went down, causing instability in radar and communications at control centers.
  • Cyber attack: Mullin said there is "zero evidence" of one, but that officials were still investigating and could not yet be certain.
  • The cost: counts differ by source and time, but more than 10,000 Friday flights were cancelled or delayed by the early evening, and cancellations carried into Saturday.
  • The ask: Duffy is asking Congress for $50 billion to rebuild the air traffic control system.

Confidence: OFFICIAL for what Duffy and Mullin said at the White House briefing; REPORTED for the flight counts and the investigation, which come from news reports and flight trackers. RAGE X has not seen a transcript of the briefing and relies on reports of it. This article follows our earlier report on the ground stop.

The timeline#

When (Friday 13 November, ET) What
Afternoon Problems with equipment and communications are reported at air traffic control centers; the FAA stops traffic at some airports
Shortly before 4 p.m. The FAA orders a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports, citing "extraordinary circumstances" and safety
About 6 p.m. FlightAware counts 1,913 flights cancelled and 10,494 delayed nationwide
About 8:15 p.m. The ground stop is lifted; Duffy announces it and warns that normal operations will return slowly
Evening Duffy and Mullin brief reporters at the White House
Saturday 14 November Airlines continue to cancel flights to reposition aircraft and crews

What Duffy says went wrong#

At the briefing, Duffy blamed aging equipment. According to ABC News and NPR, he said routers and switches "got overloaded with data" and went down, producing "inconsistency in the data" and "instability" in radar and communications at control centers and terminal radar approach control facilities across the country. He described old switches and routers and decades-old copper lines.

He said the incident was not a total loss of communications or radar, and that the stop was a precaution. Duffy said more than 3,500 aircraft were in the air when the stop was issued, and fewer than 400 later in the evening as planes landed. That figure differs from Flightradar24's count of about 3,100 aircraft bound for U.S. airports, which measured a different set of flights.

Mullin said the FAA had been installing new equipment and technology that was overwhelming the older system, according to Al Jazeera and ABC News. When reporters asked why systems would fail on an ordinary travel day, reports say Duffy did not have a ready answer.

Cyber attack, AI or Microsoft: what officials rule out#

  • Cyber attack: Mullin said there is "zero evidence" of a cyber attack, according to reports of the briefing. He also said officials were still investigating and that nothing was certain at that point. RAGE X reports the substance rather than a verbatim quote of the second part, because the wording differs between reports.
  • A new AI tool: Duffy said the FAA's recently expanded AI air traffic tool, SMART, is not connected to the core radar and flight-tracking systems and could not have affected the outage, according to the Washington Times.
  • Microsoft: Mullin rejected a link to the Microsoft 365 outage that began the day before, calling the two separate issues, according to reports. For that outage, see our Microsoft coverage.
  • The FBI: Bloomberg reported earlier in the day that the FBI was examining whether a faulty software update was responsible. Officials have not confirmed that.
  • Officials' early view: reports say officials saw no sign of malicious activity at this early stage and cautioned that findings could change.

How many flights were hit#

The figures below are from live trackers and live blogs. They changed through the evening, and they count different things, so they should not be added together.

Source Time Count
FlightAware, as reported by ABC News About 6 p.m. ET Friday 1,913 cancelled; 10,494 delayed
Fox Weather About 8 p.m. ET Friday More than 5,200 cancelled; more than 9,000 delayed
CNN, citing FlightAware Later Friday More than 7,700 cancelled; more than 8,000 delayed
FlightAware, in one live report Friday About 15,000 delayed or cancelled in total
CNBC Friday evening More than 10,000 flights disrupted, cancellations into the weekend
CNN, citing FlightAware Saturday Between roughly 1,600 and 2,000 cancellations reported for the day, in different updates

RAGE X could not confirm a figure of 13,000 flights attributed to the Wall Street Journal, and so does not use it. JetBlue said it was cancelling the rest of Friday's flights and Saturday's to reposition crews and aircraft, and Delta was among the first airlines to resume flying after the stop was lifted.

The $50 billion ask#

Duffy used the briefing to call on Congress for $50 billion to modernise air traffic control, including replacing aging hardware, telecommunications equipment and control towers. According to reports, a formal request sent to lawmakers by Duffy and the White House budget director earlier the same day sought about $30 billion, and Duffy did not explain how the two figures related. Congress has already set aside $12.5 billion for modernisation, and the $50 billion is a request, not an approved appropriation.

What is known and not known#

Item Status
The ground stop was lifted at about 8:15 p.m. ET Reported
Duffy blames overloaded routers and switches in aging equipment Official
Mullin sees "zero evidence" of a cyber attack Official
The FAA's AI tool played no role Official (Duffy)
Why the systems failed on a normal travel day Not explained
A root-cause report None released
Whether a software update was involved Unconfirmed (Bloomberg)

Questions answered#

Is the FAA ground stop over? Yes. The FAA lifted it at about 8:15 p.m. ET on Friday 13 November, after more than four hours. Delays and cancellations continued afterwards.

What caused the FAA ground stop? Duffy blames overloaded routers and switches in aging air traffic control equipment, causing instability in radar and communications. The underlying reason has not been explained and no root-cause report has been released.

Was it a cyber attack? Mullin says there is "zero evidence" of one, but officials were still investigating.

How many flights were cancelled? Reports range from more than 5,000 to more than 7,700 cancellations on Friday, depending on the source and the time, with thousands more delayed.

Will there be more disruption? Airlines were still cancelling flights into Saturday to reposition crews and aircraft.

Our read · RAGE Intel assessment

Officials have ruled out a cyber attack so far and are pointing to aging systems, but they have not explained why those systems failed on a normal travel day. Both statements can be true: old equipment can fail without any outside cause, and a rejection of an attack at this stage is a statement of present belief, not a finding.

The pairing of an unexplained failure with a $50 billion funding request will draw scrutiny. The questions that matter are what the new equipment did to the old, why the overload was not caught, and whether the earlier software-update lead is confirmed or discarded.

This is an assessment, not a finding. It will change when the FAA publishes a root-cause report or when investigators name a cause.

What to watch#

  • The root-cause report: what failed, in which centers, and why.
  • Congress: hearings on the failure and on the $50 billion request.
  • Saturday's backlog: how long it takes airlines to recover aircraft and crews.
  • The software-update lead: whether the FBI or FAA confirm it.
  • Any AI-tool link: officials say there is none; independent confirmation would settle it.

This story is developing. RAGE X will update it as new information is confirmed.

Sources#

Map and flight-tracker graphics on the carousel: RAGE Intel, using Natural Earth map data.

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