FAA Ground Stop Prompted Federal Response as Network Failure Halted Flights

President Trump was briefed within 30 minutes of the Federal Aviation Administration's Friday afternoon ground stop, according to U.S. officials, as agencies across the government mobilized to assess a communications failure. The FAA announced the grounding at 3:36 p.m. ET, when 3,500 flights were airborne. The disruption left travelers stranded across the country, with FlightAware recording about 9,159 cancellations and 7,190 delays on Friday.

Within minutes of the announcement, federal transportation, intelligence, law enforcement and military officials began coordinating. Those involved included the FBI, the director of national intelligence, the departments of Homeland Security, Transportation, Justice and Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Cyber Command, the FAA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at 4:16 p.m. ET that communications problems affecting every Air Route Traffic Control Center had made the stop necessary and that technicians were investigating.

The White House convened an interagency call shortly afterward to establish what had happened and organize a response. Intelligence officials searched their channels for indications of malicious activity but found none, leading to a preliminary assessment that such activity was unlikely. A U.S. official said senior staff interrupted an economic policy meeting to brief Trump, then passed his instructions to participants on the call.

Trump later met with Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. He also began calling congressional leaders Friday about additional FAA funding, while the White House congressional team contacted key lawmakers about air traffic controller modernization.

The stop lasted four hours, although medical services flights received permission to continue to their destinations. Officials identified the system problem by the fourth hour, and the grounding was lifted. U.S. officials said Mullin and Duffy arrived more than 30 minutes late for a Friday news conference scheduled for 7:45 p.m. ET because efforts to end the stop were nearing completion and they did not want to interrupt them.

At a Saturday news conference, Duffy said the disruption apparently started while FAA telecommunications contractor L3Harris Technologies was carrying out maintenance at a remote facility. Workers were replacing aging copper communications lines with fiber optic connections when a router began producing more than 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds. That activity overwhelmed routers throughout the FAA network, he said.

The Homeland Security Council invited government officials and some outside stakeholders to a Monday meeting to consider next steps and ways to prevent another disruption as modernization continues. The council coordinates national homeland security policy and operates through the National Security Council framework under the current White House structure. Although officials have outlined a likely sequence behind Friday's failure, questions about its underlying cause remain unresolved.