FAA's nationwide ground stop not 'another 9/11,' federal officials say - USA Today

WASHINGTON − The Trump administration assured Americans the United States is not under immediate threat or facing "another 9/11" after a telecommunication outage forced the Federal Aviation Administration to ground all flights nationally for about four hours on Nov. 13.

Trump administration officials said the nation's aging air traffic control system caused the issues. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there's no indication it was part of a "nefarious attack" against the country. He said all flights were grounded "out of an abundance of caution."

“We’re wanting to assure all the American people, this isn’t a safety (threat) to the American people or another 9/11,” Mullin said. “I think that's what a lot of people are trying to make the comparison to, and that’s not the case.”

The FAA cited "extraordinary circumstances and reasons for safety" in its directive, which came about 4 p.m. ET, instructing all departing aircraft to remain on the ground until further notice. The ground stop was lifted shortly after 8 p.m. ET.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, in a post on X, said the communications issues affected "all air route traffic control centers" and that FAA technicians were investigating the issue. Later during an evening press briefing at the White House, he blamed outdated air traffic control technology for the communications outage and called on Congress to authorize $50 billion in funds to update the system.

“What we have is an incredibly old air traffic control system,” Duffy said, adding that switches and routers got “overloaded” in the system’s analog technology. “They started to give us inconsistency in the data from those routers, and because of that, we shut the system down.”

Mullin said all flights in the United States are accounted for and being marked as they arrive at airports.

Flights were grounded for two days following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

“Of course, through DHS, we’re getting a ton of calls saying, ‘Is this a terrorist attack? Is this a terrorist attack?’” Mullin said. “Everybody’s safe. There is no reason to be concerned about your loved ones if they’re flying.”

Still, Mullin did not rule out the possibility the outage could be the result of a cyberattack or artificial intelligence intrusion.

“We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves,” he said when asked about those possibilities. “We’re not ruling anything out at this point.”

Mullin dismissed the possibility of any connection between the FAA telecommunication outage and the recent widespread technical problems with Microsoft Outlook.

“I don’t see any reason to connect those two at all,” Mullin said. “Those are separate issues.”

Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.