Homeland Security Chief Says FAA Telecom Failure Not a Cyber Attack
The FAA's nationwide ground stop, attributed to a telecommunications failure rather than hostile action, marks the second major U.S. Aviation disruption in recent years and leaves the resolution...
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide ground stop on November 13, 2026, halting all departing flights across the country while allowing aircraft already airborne to land, according to Brisbane Times. The FAA cited "extraordinary circumstance, safety reasons" as the basis for the order.
Markwayne Mullin, Secretary of Homeland Security, addressed reporters at the White House on Friday and said the government does not currently believe the country is under attack. "We have no reason to believe that, at this moment, this is a threat to the United States. This is a telecommunications problem affecting the entire FAA," Mullin said, according to Folha de S.Paulo.
Mullin also said that resolving the underlying telecommunications problem would take a prolonged period, without specifying a timeline. He did not fully rule out that an attack could later be identified as the cause, according to Folha de S.Paulo's reporting from the White House briefing.
The Brisbane Times live blog quoted Mullin directly stating, "This is not another 9/11," a reference to the September 11, 2001 attacks, which led to the only prior nationwide ground stop of comparable scale in U.S. Commercial aviation history.
The FAA's ground stop order applies to departures only. Flights already in the air were permitted to continue to their destinations and land normally, a distinction that limits immediate safety risk to passengers already aboard aircraft but creates cascading delays for scheduled departures at airports nationwide.
The FAA has previously reported air traffic control communications failures as the specific technical category of the problem. The nature of the telecommunications failure, including which systems are involved and what caused the disruption, had not been publicly confirmed in detail as of the time of reporting. What would reveal the precise cause is a formal FAA incident report or a Homeland Security Department investigation conclusion, neither of which had been published by the time of this report.
The United States operates one of the world's most complex national airspace systems, with the FAA managing approximately 45,000 flights per day during peak periods, according to FAA operational data published on its official website. A total ground stop of departing flights represents a significant interruption to that system, affecting passengers, cargo operators, and airline schedules across all major and regional airports.
The last comparable event in scale occurred on September 11, 2001, when the FAA ordered all civilian aircraft in U.S. Airspace to land immediately following the coordinated terrorist attacks. A smaller but widely noted ground stop occurred in January 2023, when a corrupted file in the FAA's Notice to Air Missions system halted departures for approximately 90 minutes before being resolved, according to contemporaneous reporting by The Associated Press.
Airlines, airports, and passengers had not received a projected resumption time for normal operations as of the information available to this publication. The duration of the current ground stop remains unknown, and Secretary Mullin's characterization of the fix as requiring a "prolonged period" suggests the disruption could extend well into the day or beyond.
The telecommunications failure's scope, specifically whether it affects FAA facilities in one region or nationwide infrastructure, had not been confirmed by named officials beyond Mullin's statement that it affects "the entire FAA." No congressional committee had announced a hearing or formal inquiry into the matter as of the time of reporting.