A communications failure brought departures across the country to a halt Friday, stranding travelers, disrupting professional sports teams and sending federal officials scrambling to restore flights and determine what went wrong.
The longest nationwide ground stop in 25 years ended after more than four hours, but the fallout stretched through the weekend as airlines worked through cancellations and investigators zeroed in on routers tied to the outage.
Here’s a timeline of the shutdown and the federal response. All times are Eastern.
4 CRITICAL TRAVEL ISSUES FOR THOSE DELAYED AND DISRUPTED BY FAA NATIONWIDE GROUND STOP
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said officials detected instability in radar data and communications at 3:36 p.m., affecting facilities that guide planes approaching airports and traveling between them.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) halted departures nationwide at 3:54 p.m. as controllers and pilots followed procedures to bring aircraft already airborne safely to the ground. About 3,500 flights were in the air.
FAA SAYS AIR TRAVEL SHOULD BE BACK TO NORMAL SUNDAY AFTER NATIONWIDE GROUND STOP
Duffy later emphasized that officials had not lost every radar feed or all telecommunications service. The inconsistent information was enough to trigger the shutdown as a safety precaution.
Duffy said the ground stop was necessary because of “a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.”
FAA technicians were investigating, he said.
The disruption also prompted a broader federal response as officials examined whether the failure could have involved malicious activity.
BUTTIGIEG TAKES SWIPE AT TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AMID FAA FLIGHT CHAOS
President Donald Trump brought federal agencies together on a call Friday, including intelligence officials, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Intelligence partners reported they were not detecting the usual signs of a cyberattack, Duffy said.
Steven Cheung, assistant to the president and White House director of communications, later said on X that the White House and administration had acted within minutes of the FAA notice, crediting Trump for the response.
“Minutes after the FAA notice posted, the White House and Administration sprang into action. Because of that speed and effectiveness, the ground stop was lifted after just a few hours,” Cheung wrote.
“A Herculean effort, only made possible by President Trump’s leadership.”
Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Friday, Nov. 13, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication of a nefarious attack and reassured Americans with loved ones traveling.
“There’s no reason for the public to be afraid or scared for your loved ones,” Mullin said.
The shutdown also left college football teams scrambling to reach Saturday’s games. Texas had already boarded its plane for Baton Rouge to face LSU when the ground stop prevented departure. Tennessee’s scheduled 4 p.m. flight to College Station was also halted.
Teams including Ole Miss, Tennessee and Baylor returned to their athletic facilities as officials weighed alternate travel plans. Some teams sat aboard charter planes for up to two hours.
The shutdown also disrupted travel for professional sports teams ahead of a busy weekend.
The Brooklyn Nets were trying to fly from New Orleans to Memphis when their flight was halted, according to The Associated Press. The Memphis Grizzlies were also in New Orleans for a Friday game against the Pelicans, with plans to depart afterward.
The Cleveland Cavaliers and Chicago Bulls also had planned postgame flights. The San Jose Sharks’ flight to Utah for a Saturday game against the Mammoth did not depart before the shutdown, while the Detroit Pistons had reached Miami earlier Friday.
The FAA lifted the nationwide order at 8:15 p.m., allowing departures to resume.
Planes began leaving airports including LaGuardia, Los Angeles International and Reagan National. Some travelers at Reagan National had been waiting since around 3:30 p.m. for flights scheduled to leave around 4 p.m.
Duffy warned that reopening the airspace would not immediately get every flight moving. Departures depended on whether airlines had pilots, flight attendants and other crews available.
“It’s going to be slow,” he said.
Lifting the ground stop did not immediately solve the travel problems for college teams. By 9:12 p.m. Friday, Washington, Texas, Tennessee and Oregon State were heading back to airports, but other programs faced crew availability problems.
Utah’s charter crew ran out of available hours, forcing the team to plan a Saturday morning departure for its game at Arizona. The Big 12 moved kickoff to 10:30 p.m. ET Saturday.
Just after midnight Saturday, the Ole Miss-Oklahoma game was moved to 1 p.m. ET Sunday after the Rebels were unable to leave Friday evening.
Oklahoma athletic director Roger Denny said the school objected to the change but was told it would face a forfeit if it refused to play Sunday.
At a Saturday briefing, Duffy said contractor L3Harris had been replacing aging copper communications lines with fiber-optic connections at a remote FAA location.
The copper line was being discontinued, making the replacement necessary, he said.
During the work, a router began generating more than 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds, overwhelming other routers and disrupting communications and radar feeds.
Investigators were examining whether installation error or faulty equipment caused the failure.
“Our contractor didn’t meet the moment or the equipment didn’t meet the moment,” Duffy said.
Bedford distinguished the routine maintenance from the administration’s broader air traffic control modernization program. Duffy also said officials would reevaluate when such work should be performed.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said “the worst is behind us,” with air travel expected to return to normal by the end of Sunday.
The Transportation Department said more than 8,000 flight operations resumed Friday night after the ground stop ended, but passengers continued facing delays and cancellations Saturday.
Airlines still needed to reposition aircraft and crews, leaving travelers scrambling to rebook and check whether their flights would operate.
Officials urged passengers to check directly with their airlines for current flight information.
Duffy said Sunday morning that air travel would improve throughout the day but probably would not return fully to normal until Monday, updating officials’ earlier prediction of a recovery by Sunday night.
Two routers from Texas and Arkansas were undergoing testing as investigators worked to determine the cause.
Duffy said work in El Dorado, Arkansas, was followed by problems involving equipment in Amarillo, Texas, where a system had been replaced about three weeks earlier. Engineers were examining the routers at an L3Harris laboratory in Florida.
“We think it was the installation or the router that was the bad actor,” Duffy said.
He said there was no indication of a foreign cyberattack, while leaving open further investigation if new evidence emerged.
Duffy also pressed Congress for additional funding. He said the $12.5 billion already allocated covered specific upgrades, including radar, radios and electronic flight strips, but did not fund a replacement telecommunications network.
By 2 p.m. ET Sunday, 5,280 flights had been delayed and 1,709 canceled within, into or out of the U.S., according to FlightAware.
Dallas Fort Worth, Atlanta and Chicago O’Hare were among the hardest-hit airports tracked in the update, with hundreds of delays at each.
The disruptions continued Sunday afternoon as airlines worked to restore normal schedules.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby praised the FAA’s decision to halt flights and thanked employees and customers for their patience during the disruption. He also called for better technology and full staffing to help prevent future outages.
Kirby said he had spoken directly with Duffy, Bedford and aviation leaders from both parties in Congress about the impact on United’s passengers and employees.
“This moment must be a call to action,” Kirby said in a statement shared with Fox News Digital.
“It is critical for safety, our passengers, and our economy that we fix our nation’s Air Traffic Control system now.”
Kirby said lawmakers from both parties were committed to modernizing the system while holding the FAA accountable.
Fox News’ Grady Trimble, Anders Hagstrom, Stephen Sorace, Trey Wallace, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
