FAA nationwide ground stop strands 1 million US air travelers

A nationwide ground stop issued by the Federal Aviation Administration on Friday, November 13, 2026, snarled air traffic across the United States and stranded 1 million air travelers, according to Transportation Department Secretary Sean Duffy.

Duffy addressed the cause at a press conference on Saturday, November 14, 2026, at the Department of Transportation in Washington, DC. He said L3 Harris workers were upgrading communication routers at a "remote location" when the system went down.

"What we’re working to determine was whether we had incompetence – meaning, was it user error or installer error from L3 Harris, or did they install a faulty router? We haven’t determined what the fault was. Was it the router? Or were they not doing great work for us at L3 Harris?" Duffy said.

Duffy emphasized that investigators "don’t believe" a cyber attack caused the widespread incident, but did not rule out the theory completely.

L3 Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.

The disruption caused chaos at airports. Passengers whose flights were canceled Friday night were seen sleeping on the floor of Terminal 4 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens on Saturday morning, November 14, 2026.

In Canada, one of the country’s largest airlines said it would likely take the weekend for schedules to return to normal after officials temporarily grounded flights across the United States on Friday. People waited in line to rebook cancelled flights at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Friday, November 13, 2026.

Toronto airports were gradually resuming U.S. flights after the FAA lifted the hours-long ground stop, according to the Toronto Star.

The New York Post described the story as breaking and said it would be updated.

Sources

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