FAA nationwide ground stop blamed on contractor's network upgrade
A router overloaded during contractor L3Harris's work to replace copper wiring with fibre at a remote site, disrupting FAA radar and communications and forcing a nationwide ground stop from 20:54 to 01:15 UTC on 13 November. Thousands of flights were cancelled on Friday and Saturday; officials say there is no evidence of hacking or AI involvement.
- Service
- FAA air traffic control (US)
- Date
- 13 November 2026
- Cause
- Configuration change
- Duration
- 4.4 hours
- Status
- resolved
- Severity
- critical
- Region
- Global
- Source
- TechCrunch ↗
Cite this
Nuffield Consulting, “FAA nationwide ground stop blamed on contractor's network upgrade”, The Daily Tech Wire outage & breach log, 13 Nov 2026. https://techwire.nuffieldconsulting.com/incidents/2026-11-13-faa-air-traffic-control-outage/ (retrieved 15 Nov 2026).
This entry summarises public reporting. Please also cite the original source: TechCrunch, https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/14/transportation-secretary-blames-routine-equipment-upgrade-for-grounding-flights-nationwide/.
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