L3Harris, contractor that revamped Trump’s Qatar-gifted jet, questioned by Sean Duffy amid FAA outage

L3Harris Technologies is facing scrutiny after US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy questioned whether the contractor's mistake or faulty equipment caused Friday's nationwide FAA outage. The company had also worked with the US government on modifying a Qatar-gifted jet that could become President Donald Trump's new Air Force One.

Sean Duffy has pointed to contractor L3Harris after Friday’s FAA ground stop. (REUTERS)L3Harris has responded to the scrutiny. “L3Harris takes the nationwide ground stop and its impact on travelers, airlines and air traffic operations seriously,” a company spokesperson said, as per Reuters.

The spokesperson added that “L3Harris is supporting US FAA in its investigation of Friday’s aviation shutdown.” US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Saturday that investigators are checking whether contractor “incompetence” or a faulty router caused Friday’s air traffic control outage.

The outage led to a rare nationwide ground stop that lasted about four hours. Duffy said the failure happened during a network upgrade from copper to fiber wiring. A router that was being replaced began flooding other routers in the system, as per ANI.

“So what we’re working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error, installer error from L3Harris, or did they install a faulty router? We haven’t determined what the fault was,” Duffy told reporters.

“Was it the router or were they not doing great work for us at L3Harris? Either through contractor error or a faulty piece of equipment, that router that was being replaced as we switch from copper to fiber started flooding other routers in our air traffic control system.” Duffy ruled out a cyberattack.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford also backed this. “We see zero evidence of anything nefarious, and zero evidence of anything AI-related,” Bedford said. He added that the FAA is still checking whether the failure came from “faulty installation,” “faulty configuration,” or faulty router hardware.

L3Harris is not new to the headlines. According to CNBC, in a report from May 1, 2025, the US was working with L3Harris Technologies to modify a used Qatari government jumbo jet. As per CNBC, this came after President Donald Trump showed frustration over delays in Boeing’s work on two 747s meant to serve as the next Air Force One.

Trump made a deal with Boeing in his first term to fix up these two planes. As per the report, Boeing has had more than $2 billion in extra costs on the project. With the new planes taking longer than expected, Trump began considering alternatives.

He told reporters in February 2025 that he was looking at other options. “We may buy a plane or get a plane, or something,” he said, according to a Reuters. L3Harris shares closed Friday at $272.35 and fell to $261.00 in after-hours trading, a drop of 4.2%, as per 247 Wall St.

The stock closed Friday down 7.2% for 2026 and is on pace for its worst year since 2011, Barron’s reported. Airline stocks also fell after hours, according to 247 Wall St. Delta fell 2.4%, United 1.9%, American 1.8% and Southwest 1.3%.

Khushi Arora is a Content Producer at Hindustan Times, where she writes for the US Desk, covering everything happening in the United States, while maintaining quality and delivering impactful stories across all beats. She previously worked at Zee News for over a year where she explored multiple beats including News Desk, Education and Lifestyle.

With a background in English Literature, Khushi blends sharp research with thoughtful storytelling, shaping stories that go beyond headlines and bring clarity and credibility to every piece she writes. Beyond the newsroom, she enjoys reading, watching cinema and loves having long conversations about books, films and everything in between.Read More