Here's the latest
• What went wrong: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said it’s still unclear if aging equipment or contractor error was at the root of telecommunication outages that forced a rare nationwide ground stop yesterday. Duffy has criticized a key contractor, L3Harris, and blamed dated air traffic control technology, but the Trump administration has yet to provide a clear explanation for how the airspace meltdown unfolded.
• Travel misery: Thousands of travelers face lingering delays and cancellations today. Here’s a look at some of the most affected airports, and what to do if your flight is impacted.
• Untangling the mess: Airlines are shuffling schedules for pilots and flight attendants and trying to clear the backlog of flights as air traffic control centers resume normal operations. “I do think the worst is behind us,” the FAA administrator said today, adding that he expects airlines to resume full schedules by the end of Sunday.
Updates
(46)A closer look at L3Harris, the tech firm behind the FAA’s communications system
L3Harris, the defense contractor behind America’s leading air traffic surveillance system, is under scrutiny following the Federal Aviation Administration’s ground stop and criticism from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
The FAA cited safety concerns related to a telecommunications outage for yesterday’s rare nationwide order. L3Harris manages the largest surveillance system, including more than 45,000 daily flights across the airspace system, and connects more than 4,400 facilities, according to the company.
L3Harris, which was founded in 2019, says it is currently working on modernizing the administration’s technology, with just 70% of sites upgraded from “decades-old copper wire connections” to high-speed networks. It also operates the FAA’s Data Comm program, which manages air traffic.
Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin have suggested updates to the FAA’s aging systems were behind the halt on flights, but Trump administration officials have yet to pinpoint whether contractor error or a faulty router was ultimately to blame.
L3Harris has not yet responded to CNN’s requests for comment.
“Our team’s deep knowledge of the U.S. national airspace allows us to upgrade systems without disrupting air traffic operations,” the company’s website says, adding that it coordinates with FAA staff “to ensure (air traffic) controllers have the connectivity they need.”
The Florida-based company, which also works with the Department of Defense, was responsible for upgrading the Boeing 747 jet gifted to President Donald Trump from Qatar. Former CEO Christopher Kubasik said the company was “deeply honored” to work on the Air Force One plane.
Kubasik was ousted from the role in August over conduct “not consistent” with company values, but wasn’t connected to L3Harris’ “financial reporting, controls, customer relationships or operational performance,” according to the company.
Shares of L3Harris (LHX) fell 3.82% on Friday in after-hours trading.
Scenes from the nation's airports as travelers try to get trips back on track
Long lines, frustrated travelers and reshuffled plans prevail at airports across the country this weekend as the impacts of a rare nationwide ground stop are still being felt.
Airlines are working to clear the backlog of flights as air traffic control centers resume normal operations, and the FAA administrator said today that he expects a full schedule to resume by the end of Sunday.
Federal aviation administrator explains how system is architected
“There is no backup to the backup” when communication between routers is severed, Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford said at a news conference today from the Department of Transportation headquarters in Washington, DC.
At the heart of the problem is a decades-old telecommunications technology called Time Division Multiplexing, or TDM. Think of it as the technological equivalent of the dial-up internet era in a world that has long since moved on to high-speed fiber optics. Much of the FAA’s telecommunications infrastructure still relies on aging copper wires.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said newer equipment already installed by the FAA was not affected by Friday’s outage.
“This is a T1 line telephony infrastructure, hasn’t been in production for decades,” he said. “We sustain it.”
Bedford said that sustainment process was happening in the remote location where according to Duffy, a contractor was doing maintenance to switch telecommunication lines from old copper wire to fiber.
Multiple logon attempts overwhelmed one set of routers in a ground-based aviation service called an en route facility, Bedford said, “which then went to the backups at other en route facilities, and it propagated from there.”
Speaker Mike Johnson says Democrats did not help fund FAA legislation
Speaker Mike Johnson credited Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and President Donald Trump on “sounding the alarms since the beginning,” about the nation’s outdated air traffic control systems.
Johnson said, “I tried to echo those alarms, we got about 12, almost $13 billion in the Big Beautiful Bill, the Working Families Tax Cut, to assist is sort of a down payment on that,” but the GOP majority could not get “any Democrats to assist, so we had to that only with Republican votes.”
Looking ahead, Johnson said that the House, Homeland Security and other committees will work to advance FAA during the final 50 days of the GOP majority.
“We don’t really need any investigation to understand we need further investment, Johnson said, “We’re going to work to get it done.”
Ole Miss football game against Oklahoma moved to Sunday
The nationwide ground stop forced the Southeastern Conference to move the game between No. 19 Ole Miss and Oklahoma, previously scheduled for this afternoon, to Sunday after Ole Miss was unable to make the trip to Norman, Oklahoma, last night.
“The Ole Miss football team was unable to depart Oxford Friday night due to the FAA ground stoppage,” the SEC said in a statement early this morning. “After the stoppage was lifted, a late-night departure could not be accommodated by the charter company with which Ole Miss was contracted and the team’s departure has been delayed until Saturday afternoon.”
The game will now be played on Sunday at noon CT (1 p.m. ET).
Oklahoma director of athletics Roger Denny issued a statement this morning voicing his frustration at the situation.
“After multiple conversations with the league office, (SEC) Commissioner Sankey informed us of his decision to move our game to Sunday, over our strong objection. After continued discussions, he further informed us that our failure to play on Sunday at the directed time would result in a forfeit.”
Like many other college towns in SEC country and across the nation, the entire week revolves around the Sooners game in the fall in Norman, and pushing the game back nearly 24 hours presents a logistical nightmare.
CNN has reached out to Ole Miss for any reaction to the situation.
Duffy says officials are working to identify remaining copper wires that need replacing
There are still copper wires connecting FAA systems across the country that need to be replaced, and officials are working to identify where they are, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
Yesterday, a contractor was replacing an old copper wire on a telecommunications system when an outage forced a rare nationwide ground stop.
Duffy said “over 70% of the copper has been transitioned to fiber,” but the work “doesn’t happen overnight.”
“You can’t lay fiber all over the country in a month. It’s going to take us time to do that. To deploy a new architecture, it doesn’t happen instantaneously,” he said today at a news conference, emphasizing workers are moving “fast and safely” on replacements.
No disruption expected to Sunday's NFL schedule
An NFL spokesperson tells CNN that the league expects “no impact” on Sunday’s Week 10 schedule from the nationwide FAA ground stop.
The league also said in a statement: “Due to the ongoing nationwide impact to air travel this weekend, the NFL has adjusted its officiating assignments for Week 10 games, reassigning officials to games within driving distance of their hometowns.”
Duffy says he has "demanded more" from contractor after routine procedure went wrong
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said today there could have been “mistakes made” by contractor L3Harris during a routine procedure that led to the nationwide ground stop, adding that people will be held “accountable.”
He went on to criticize other contractors that the department works with.
“Many of our contractors, many of our partners, they take our money and they provide really poor service to us. Full stop,” Duffy added. “And we have demanded more. We demanded better because the American people deserve better and we’re getting better performance from everyone who’s doing business with us now. We need L3Harris or whoever provided that router to us to do a better job.”
FAA administrator "very confident" system is operating safely
“I’m confident, very, very confident, that the system is operating as safe today as it was two weeks ago,” said Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford in a Saturday news conference.
Bedford said officials had expressed concern about potential security threats, especially after a global Microsoft outage left millions without email access earlier this week.
He and other FAA officials have maintained the ground stop was not caused by a cybersecurity threat.
Until the aging Flight Test Instrumentation system can be replaced, Bedford said, the FAA will continue to spend the money it takes to keep the system functioning.
“But let’s not kid ourselves; it will continue to break until we replace it,” he added.
"None of the facilities actually went dark," FAA chief says
During the events that led to yesterday’s nationwide ground stop, no air traffic control en route centers “actually went dark,” though as many as 17 of 22 facilities were affected, FAA chief Bryan Bedford said.
“None of the facilities actually went dark. What we had were random reports from different facilities of certain frequencies that were going in and out, and requiring them to switch between primaries and backup switching,” he said, responding to a question about what air traffic controllers were seeing before the ground stop was enacted.
“Now, if that had been a single facility, we would have just worked through it,” Bedford explained.
There are 22 air traffic control en route centers in the US.
CNN’s Pete Muntean contributed to this reporting.
Duffy says yesterday’s switchover “was a remote location” that was necessary for safety
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the upgrades made to aviation systems yesterday which malfunctioned and caused a ground stop were necessary.
“Safety is paramount. If we don’t make these upgrades, we have a less safe system. We can’t continue on technology of the 80s,” he said today at a news conference in response to a question regarding why the department chose to implement the new systems during such a busy flying time.
He continued: “We’re making transition not because we want to spend money. We’re making the transition because it’s safer and it’s more resilient.”
Duffy said the nature of yesterday’s switchover “was a remote location” and wasn’t expected to malfunction.
“These smaller locations don’t have that kind of impact or they shouldn’t have that kind of impact which is what we saw yesterday,” Duffy said.
He went on to say that there “will be be a reevaluation of when we do this work.”
"I'm stuck with L3Harris," Duffy criticizes key contractor
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he is currently “stuck” with contractor L3Harris after yesterday’s ground stop, having criticized the company in today’s news conference.
Issues that led to the ground stop were brought about after an upgrade carried out by L3Harris, which owns the “legacy telecom network,” Duffy explained.
“With our new architecture, with the money that we’re requesting, we will work with the greatest telecom companies in the world, which will be AT&T, Verizon, and Lumens,” he continued.
“They’re all working with us on the new architecture. But in the meantime, until I can build that, I’m stuck with L3Harris, who owns this network,” he said.
CNN has reached out to the L3Harris for more information.
Duffy: Recently deployed SMART system not the cause of outages
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters today that the SMART system the department had “deployed” a few months ago was not responsible for yesterday’s outages.
After Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford said there is “zero evidence” that the nationwide ground stop yesterday was caused by “anything AI related,” Duffy stressed that the department’s “tool,” called the Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories, is not to blame.
"I do think the worst is behind us," federal aviation administrator says
Full schedule integrity is expected by the end of Sunday, Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford said today at a Department of Transportation news conference.
“As we went into Friday, we had 50,000 flights scheduled to operate. When we went into the ground stop at approximately 3:45 p.m. East Coast time yesterday, we had completed about 30,000 of those flights, either on the ground or in the air,” he said.
This left 20,000 more flights to complete over the course of the four-hour ground stop, Bedford continued.
Out of those 20,000 flights, the Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration were able to recover 8,000, he said.
“We have crews and aircraft that are out of position for 12,000 flights that were lost,” Bedford said. “These crews, pilots and flight attendants need to get to their points of reconnection with their schedules.”
Bedford said they expect about 4,000 to 5,000 flights out of the 41,000 scheduled Saturday to be canceled.
“That will set us up for a full recovery tomorrow,” he said. “I do think the worst is behind us.”
FAA administrator: Outage caused by equipment issue, "zero evidence" of nefarious activity
The system outage was caused by an equipment error, said Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford in a Saturday news conference. “We see zero evidence of anything nefarious, and zero evidence of anything AI-related.”
Bedford echoed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s earlier remarks that it is not clear whether the issue was propagated by “faulty installation,” “faulty configuration,” or a flawed piece of router technology.
The FAA will share the root cause analysis when it is available, Bedford said.
Unclear whether equipment or contractor error caused issue, Duffy says
It is unclear whether an issue that occurred when a wire was being switched from copper to fiber was caused by contractor error or faulty equipment, Duffy said in a Saturday news conference.
The router being replaced started flooding other routers in the air traffic control system, Duffy said.
“We had over 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds, and what that did was gave us issues with our communication with airplanes, and it also caused some disruption with our radar feeds,” he said.
When officials noticed this, they initiated the ground stop and began isolating the problem before opening the airspace later in the day, Duffy said, adding that travelers’ safety is “paramount.”
"Sorry we put you through this," FAA chief says to affected travelers
FAA chief Bryan Bedford has apologized to travelers who were impacted by yesterday’s nationwide ground stop, saying: “I’m sorry that we put you through this, but we did it for the right reasons.”
Bedford offered a “sincere apology to the American traveling public” for the disruption.
“I want you to understand we did that out of an abundance of caution,” he added. The system “started to exhibit some instability,” the cause of which could not immediately be assessed, he said.
“We had controllers who worked throughout the night, helping through the recovery. Maintenance technicians, our airline partners, our airport partners, everybody came together to try to mitigate this just as quickly as possible, and to take care of the travelers that were out there,” Bedford said.
Duffy asks for more investments for Department of Transportation
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said his department has been asking Congress for more money for years.
“I’ve asked for a lot of money now,” he said at a news conference today. “The Congress gave me a partial payment. They gave me $12.5 billion.”
He went on to detail how the Transportation Department has spent that money and went on to ask for more.
“I think this is a sign for them to lean in,” Duffy said, referencing yesterday’s nationwide ground stop. “Let’s make the investments and look forward to a brighter future in aviation, a safer future, a more efficient future in aviation.”
Duffy says department doesn't "believe" outages were due to cyber attack
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a news conference today that the department does not “believe” the outages that led to a nationwide ground stop yesterday were not caused by a cyber attack.
He added: “Once we were able to isolate the work that was being done at this remote location, all of our systems came back online. … This was an FAA system that didn’t meet, didn’t meet the moment.”
Contractor was replacing an old copper wire yesterday, Duffy says
An old telecommunication system could be a partial cause for yesterday’s nationwide ground stop, said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in a Saturday morning news conference.
In at least one remote Federal Aviation Administration location, a contractor was doing routine maintenance to switch telecommunication lines from an old copper wire to fiber, Duffy said.
“It was such an old wire that it was being discontinued, meaning that line was going to get shut down. So we had to switch it over from old copper,” he added, saying this is “straightforward” work that has been happening across the country for decades.
CNN has reached out to the contractor for more information.
