FAA ground stop tied to network router issue during equipment upgrade

In short: A nationwide FAA ground stop on Nov. 13, 2026 was triggered by a network failure after work to upgrade old communications lines.

What happened

The Federal Aviation Administration halted departures across the United States on Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. The ground stop lasted for more than four hours, after communications and radar feeds started failing.

On Nov. 14, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the problems followed work at a remote FAA site. The work was meant to replace aging copper lines with fiber-optic connections, which are newer, faster cables that carry signals as light (like upgrading an old phone line to a clearer, higher-capacity one).

After the upgrade work, a router, which is a device that directs data traffic (like a traffic cop for internet signals), began flooding other parts of the FAA network with data. Officials said the overload spread through the national air traffic system and led to the disruptions.

Investigators were still working to confirm the exact cause. Officials said it was not yet clear whether the failure came from an installation error during the upgrade or from a faulty router.

The ground stop was lifted, but delays and cancellations continued as airlines tried to get planes and crews back into position.

Why it matters

Even when a failure starts at one remote facility, it can ripple through the whole aviation system and affect travelers nationwide. Officials also said there was no evidence of a cyberattack, and Duffy said the outage was unrelated to the FAA’s new AI-powered air-traffic tool. He said the problem involved older communications equipment, not the AI system.

Source: NYTimes