Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said every flight was accounted for after a telecommunications failure halted departures nationwide on November 13. Planes already in the air were being handled safely, he said, and officials had found no indication of an attack.
“This isn’t another 9/11” — Markwayne Mullin
The FAA’s ground stop lasted roughly 4–5 hours, grounding thousands of flights and triggering widespread delays and cancellations.
It was the second nationwide grounding of that scale since September 11, 2001, following a shorter shutdown caused by a 2023 outage of the system that provides safety notices to pilots.
Mullin said people had been calling with concerns and drawing comparisons to 9/11. He reassured them that they had no reason to fear for loved ones.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also described the disruption as a technical failure.
The FAA later traced the problem to aging telecommunications equipment that became unstable under a heavy data load.