Nationwide Ground Stop Caused By Same Firm That Left Trump’s Boeing 747-8 With Security Gaps

Published Nov 14, 2026, 1:57 PM EST Journalist – Aaron is an aviation and travel journalist with 14 years of experience in the travel and tourism industry. His background spans airport operations, aviation infrastructure, and travel consulting, having worked with global organizations across New Zealand, Europe, and North America. Combining industry expertise with firsthand travel experience across more than 52 countries and five continents, Aaron covers airlines, airports, aviation policy, and the wider travel sector. He is based in Canterbury, New Zealand. His work has been published in Simple Flying and featured by MSN, SAM CHUI Aviation & Travel, EIN News, Pakistan Defence, and Climate Depot. The four-hour ground stop that halted flight departures across the United States triggered more than 10,000 flight cancellations on Friday alone. The routine telecommunications upgrade was being completed by L3Harris Technologies, the same defense and aerospace contractor that was hired by the Pentagon to retrofit the Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8 Air Force One. During the morning briefing by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, he identified that L3Harris, which owns and operates the legacy telecommunications network for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), were working on a remote site for the administration when the system collapsed on Friday, turning the aviation industry into chaos on Friday. Nationwide FAA Airspace Shutdown Triggered By Fiber Upgrade According to FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, and alongside Duffy, the two explained how the outage unfolded during an L3Harris crew switching the aging copper telecommunications line to fiber-optic cabling at a remote facility. This saw the router involved begin flooding other routers across the private air traffic control network. Preliminary findings suggest that the Cisco 600-series routers, which were manufactured a quarter of a century ago, then became overwhelmed and were feeding out-of-sync data pockets into the wider network. With an estimated 1,000 connection attempts every few seconds, 45 minutes of instability was experienced across 17 of 22 en route air traffic control centres, affecting voice radio communications with pilots and altering radar feeds, resulting in the rare move by the FAA to order a nationwide shutdown of departing flights out of an abundance of caution. Flights Grounded Around The World The ground stop was issued for all departing flights to, from, and within the US. Flights already en route and in the sky were permitted to continue onto their destination, with 1,000's of airplanes able to land safely. All departing flights were grounded for up to four hours until the ground stop was lifted. This sent a ripple effect to flights across the world, with many US-bound services delayed at the gate until the all-clear was given to resume flights later on Friday at 8:15 PM (EST). Duffy and Bedford have stressed that there was absolutely no sign of a cyber attack or link to the FAA AI controller tool. Investigators are now looking to determine whether the failure stemmed from the defective router or an installation error by the L3Harris technicians. This would not be the first time a fiber transition to the new network has failed, with a 2009 incident also disrupting up to 129 FAA facilities. As a result, more than 10,000 flights were canceled on Friday, and many more delays and cancellations are expected to linger across the weekend as airlines work to reposition thousands of affected crew, passengers and aircraft. L3Harris Connection To The VC-25B Bridge L3Harris has a connection to the Trump-influenced Boeing 747-8 VC-25B Bridge. The FAA worked with L3Harris during a rapid retrofit of the Qatari-donated 747-8, which is set to be an interim aircraft until the delivery of new Air Force One aircraft expected in 2028. L3Harris worked with the administration to fast-track modifications for the interim aircraft. The rapid overhaul focused on basic communication and livery, instead of the full suite of hardened electronic countermeasures that are installed on the legacy VC-25A aircraft. These defensive gaps were highlighted during the aircraft swap Trump was forced to undertake following a security threat in Ankara, Turkey, where it is alleged Trump was shuffled out of the 747 onto a catering truck and into a waiting Air Force C-32A (A321) for a trip to the UK. Following this incident, the 747-8 was taken offline for additional security upgrades to the aircraft. As highlighted on Friday, the aging air traffic control infrastructure is under immense pressure in the US, and Duffy has called on Congress to rapidly approve up to $50 billion in funding to support the full replacement of the nation's air traffic control system.