Issues with a new router related to a fiber optic upgrade grounded thousands of flights on Friday.Issues with a new router related to a fiber optic upgrade grounded thousands of flights on Friday.Nov 14, 2026, 5:44 PM UTCA view of an information board at the Chicago O’Hare International Airport, filled with waiting passengers on November 13, 2026.Anadolu via Getty ImagesAt a press conference today, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that Friday’s nationwide ground stop ordered by the FAA was related to work replacing outdated copper wire with a fiber optic line at a “remote FAA facility.” The secretary said that this was “routine maintenance,” rather than the result of a major modernization effort. He told reporters that it was “such an old wire that it was being discontinued, meaning that line was going to get shut down,” necessitating the upgrade.What wasn’t clear, according to Secretary Duffy, was the root cause of the problem. He said that it could have been faulty hardware, a misconfigured router, or “incompetence” on the part of contractor L3Harris. Regardless, what followed was the newly installed router “flooding” other routers in the Air Traffic Control system. Duffy said that there were “over 1,000 connection attempts every 4 to 5 seconds,” causing disruption to radar feeds and communication with planes.Secretary Duffy also took the opportunity to call on additional funding from Congress for modernizing the Air Traffic Control system, and to tout the work the FAA has done so far. “We are building, we are building safely, but we are building fast,” he said, but said that Congress had only given him a “partial payment” to complete the necessary work.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Terrence O’BrienThe Verge DailyA free daily digest of the news that matters most.Email (required)By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Work to replace old copper wire led to the FAA’s ground stop
