Editor’s note: The story has been updated to include comments from political leaders.
The Federal Aviation Administration lifted a nationwide ground stop at 8:15 p.m. ET Friday, nearly five hours after telecommunications failures at air traffic facilities halted departures with more than 3,500 aircraft airborne.
Overloaded Legacy Switches Blamed for FAA Outage
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said radar and communications became unstable at 3:36 p.m. ET at terminal radar approach control facilities (TRACONs) and en route centers.
“Our switches, our routers actually got overloaded with data,” Duffy said at a news conference, citing the FAA’s analog telecom network. He said upgraded IP-based switches did not fail. “It’s the old hardware that went down.”
No Cyberattack Evidence; Duffy Seeks $50 Billion
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said officials have seen “zero evidence” of a cyberattack and no link to Thursday’s Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) email outage, though he did not fully rule it out.
Duffy also asked Congress for $50 billion on top of the $12.5 billion approved in last year’s budget law. “This is an emergency,” he said. He warned, “You will have more of these,” without full funding.
When asked whether the disruption could cascade into Thanksgiving travel, Duffy said he expects the system to be “back up and operational” as Thanksgiving travel peaks, though he acknowledged it will take time to clear the backlog.
The FAA said it tested its systems before clearing flights to resume. It urged passengers to contact their airlines for updates.
Nationwide ground stops are rare. The last one came in January 2023, when a contractor unintentionally deleted files tied to a pilot safety system, and before that only after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Political Leaders React to Nationwide Flight Disruption
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) cited the ground stop in a post criticizing President Donald Trump. She said he has engaged in “nonstop war mongering for a war that America is against,” and that “everyone is rightfully very concerned.”
In a later post, Greene criticized the $50 billion funding request, calling it a “shakedown so we can fly safely.” She said the administration spends on a White House ballroom and “gaudy gold” décor, and she mocked the call for more money.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said in an X post that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was “defending North Korea” while travelers were “stuck at the airport this Friday night.”
Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.), chairman of the Aviation Safety Caucus, said he was relieved public safety was not compromised. In his X post, he said the outage still caused “enormous inconvenience, stress for travelers and their families.”
Langworthy said Congress can no longer afford to delay modernizing air traffic control. He called for transparency from the FAA and its contractors and cited a “yet-to-be-determined economic impact.”
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) said systems this critical “cannot fail” and called for an investigation.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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