Trump administration blames ‘overloaded’ systems for ground stop after FAA lets flights resume

Trump administration officials said Friday (November 13, 2026) that new technology being added to the nation's air traffic control system overloaded antiquated systems and caused “intermittent” communications and radar gaps, leading to the longest nationwide ground stop in 25 years.

It was lifted Friday (November 13, 2026) night after a five-hour stretch when most flights were not allowed to take off from airports in the United States. Thousands of flights and potentially over a million travellers were affected from coast to coast.

Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin told reporters at the White House that no one was in any danger as more than 3,000 flights were safely landed. But Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said he could not guarantee it wouldn't happen again.

Mr. Mullin said the FAA was installing “new equipment, new technology” and “it was overwhelming the older system.” There appeared to be no indication of a cyberattack, Mr. Mullin said. A limited number of domestic flights began departing Friday (November 13, 2026) evening after the ground stop was lifted, but it would likely take days for airlines to fully recover because so many planes and crews were out of position.

Officials said they think the system will be back to normal in time to handle the Thanksgiving travel rush. The nationwide ground stop was the first since January 2023, when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned, and the second since the aftermath of the Sept.

11, 2001, attacks. Asked whether he could rule out a cyberattack or rogue artificial intelligence incident, Mr. Mullin said: “There's nothing completely certain right now. It doesn't appear that way.” He said there are no “footprints” showing an attack and that it appears to be “mechanically driven,” adding that officials were still looking for the cause.

At least 827 flights had been diverted. As of 7.05 p.m. EST, 670 flights were sent back to the airport from where they originally took off, while 157 were redirected to a different airport, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics company.

The airports where many of the flights ended up being diverted included Washington Dulles International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and Nashville International Airport.

Some 11,000 flights carrying more than 1.5 million passengers had been scheduled to take off from airports in the U.S. after 4 p.m. EST. At the time of the ground stoppage, 3,500 airplanes were in the sky, Mr. Duffy said.

“And last time I looked, we had less than 400 in the airspace,” he said. He said it's going to be slow getting air traffic back to normal. At Chicago O'Hare Airport on Friday (November 13, 2026) afternoon, travellers passing through security learned about the ground stop when they looked up at screens that showed flight delays across the board.

Some called friends or family members, debating whether to stay the night in Chicago or find another way to their destinations. Amber McQuilkin, 27, sat on a bench, disappointed that she might miss a trip with friends to New York for the League of Legends world finals.

Her friends, she said, had already arrived there. “There's not really any information being passed to me,” said the Seattle software engineer, who took a week of vacation for the trip. “I contemplated just abandoning the flight and driving, but then the more I thought about it, the more I'm like, that would be miserable.” Austin Curtis and his wife were rethinking their trip from South Bend, Indiana, to a friend's baby shower in Denver after getting delayed during a layover in Chicago.

They had boarded a flight to Denver from O'Hare International Airport when they were told to get off the plane.