[Video] Follow-Up: White House Traces Nationwide Ground Stop to 1980s-Era ATC Equipment as Duffy Urges $50 Billion Rebuild
The White House on November 14 released a statement summarizing remarks by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin at a press briefing on the night of the nationwide ground stop. At 3:36 p.m. on November 13, radar and communications systems at air route traffic control centers and terminal radar approach control facilities nationwide became unstable, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a nationwide ground stop; about 3,500 aircraft were airborne at the time, a number that fell to fewer than 400 as all landed safely.
Duffy said the failure lay in 1980s-era equipment: analog telecom lines and old switches and routers were overloaded and went down, while newly installed IP switches did not. The current system runs on 1980s copper lines, he said: none of the public's networks run on 1980 technology, but the FAA's does.
Mullin said there was zero evidence that this was a cyberattack or an SI attack, that the failure appeared mechanically driven, and that officials were still looking. The White House statement said President Trump has already secured $12.5 billion toward a full rebuild and that the administration is urging Congress to provide the remaining funding.
"This is an emergency. I want Congress to give us emergency funding. I want $50 billion," Duffy said at the briefing. He said the $12.5 billion came through the One Big Beautiful Bill as partial funding, and that an emergency funding bill before the end of the year is the opportunity to complete it. Mullin called the outdated air traffic control system a national security risk and said this is what happens when Congress kicks the can down the road.
The FAA ground stop on November 13 lasted more than four hours, with nearly 6,000 flights canceled on Friday and more than 6,400 canceled and 8,000 delayed on Saturday; the FAA said operations would return to normal by Sunday night. Earlier GSM coverage of this event is linked in the timeline on this page.
Source: The White House
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：明尼阿波利斯—圣保罗国际机场的联邦航空管理局（FAA）空管塔台及塔顶雷达（资料图）。Tony Webster 摄，CC BY-SA 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons，本图已裁为 16:9。 / Photo: The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic control tower and its rooftop radar at Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport (file photo). By Tony Webster, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped to 16:9.
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- 2026-11-14[Video] Follow-Up: White House Traces Nationwide Ground Stop to 1980s-Era ATC Equipment as Duffy Urges $50 Billion RebuildThis story
