The head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Bryan Bedford, addressed American travelers on Saturday following the most significant air travel disruption in over 20 years. He assured that no aircraft would take off until authorities are completely certain of their safe operation.
"The primary mission of the FAA is to ensure people reach their destinations safely. We will prioritize safety and keep planes grounded unless we are fully confident in our ability to operate safely," Bedford asserted.
Bedford emphasized that the safety network within the aviation system extends beyond just the agency itself: "Redundancy isn't solely within the FAA. It involves our ground crews, flight teams, pilots, controllers; the entire infrastructure is built with multiple safety layers and redundancy. I am very confident that the system is operating with the same safety standards as it did two weeks ago."
Bedford's comments came a day after the FAA mandated a nationwide halt of all departures in the United States on Friday, November 13, at 3:54 PM Eastern Time, due to a communication failure affecting the country's 22 regional air traffic control centers.
The suspension lasted over four and a half hours, until around 8:15 PM ET, resulting in over 6,500 cancellations and approximately 10,000 delays, according to post-incident reports.
On Saturday, Bedford estimated that airlines would cancel between 4,000 and 5,000 of the roughly 41,000 flights scheduled for the day, predicting that normal schedules wouldn't resume until the end of Sunday, November 15.
Miami International Airport continued to experience cancellations and delays on Saturday, a day after the incident.
Meanwhile, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy disclosed that the investigation points to contractor L3Harris Technologies, which was replacing copper connections with fiber optics at a remote FAA facility when the failure occurred.
"We are trying to determine if there was incompetence, meaning whether it was a user or installer error from L3Harris, or if they installed a faulty router," Duffy told Fox News. "We have not determined what went wrong. Was it the router, or were they not doing a good job for us at L3Harris?"
According to Duffy, the router being replaced during the transition from copper to fiber began overwhelming other routers in the air traffic control network, generating over 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds. This overloaded equipment reportedly included Cisco 600 series routers manufactured between 2001 and 2006.
Authorities explicitly ruled out any cyberattack or national security threat as the cause of the incident.
The episode reignited the debate over the outdated state of U.S. aviation infrastructure: roughly 68-70% of the copper network had already been replaced with fiber optics, yet hundreds of facilities continued operating with decades-old technology.
Duffy warned that further disruptions could occur without system modernization and called on Congress for an additional $50 billion, although the chamber had already approved $12.5 billion in July 2025 for that purpose.
This incident marks only the third national airspace shutdown in modern U.S. history, following the September 11, 2001 attacks and the pilot notification system failure on January 11, 2023.
Key Details on Recent FAA Grounding Incident
What caused the recent FAA grounding of flights?
The grounding was due to a communications failure affecting all 22 regional air traffic control centers in the U.S., linked to work by L3Harris Technologies transitioning from copper to fiber optic connections.
How long did the flight suspension last?
The suspension lasted over four and a half hours, from 3:54 PM ET to around 8:15 PM ET, on November 13.
How many flights were affected by the grounding?
More than 6,500 flights were canceled and about 10,000 faced delays due to the incident.
What steps are being taken to prevent future incidents?
The FAA and involved parties are investigating the cause and pushing for infrastructure modernization to prevent similar incidents. Additional funding has been requested to update outdated systems.