Thousands of travelers spent the afternoon of Nov. 13 staring at departure boards that refused to budge.
Gates overflowed, baggage claims filled with frustrated crowds, and planes sat parked from coast to coast as the Federal Aviation Administration took a step it almost never takes.
By the time the skies reopened more than four hours later, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy had an explanation ready and a very expensive request riding right behind it.
The same administration that has spent months touting splashy airport makeovers was suddenly on defense. And once Duffy stepped up to the White House podium, his story of what broke didn’t hold together for long.
The trouble surfaced in the middle of the afternoon, when radar and communications at air traffic control centers across the country became unstable.
The FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop on all departing flights, citing “extraordinary circumstances” and “reasons of safety.” By Duffy’s count, roughly 3,500 planes were already in the air when it hit.
Departures stayed frozen until a little after 8 p.m. Eastern, leaving thousands of flights canceled or delayed and delays set to drag on long after planes started moving again, CNN reported. The last time the entire country was grounded like this was January 2023, when a pilot-alert system crashed.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no sign of a cyberattack. Duffy, meanwhile, pinned the chaos on what he called an “incredibly old” air traffic control system, explaining that routers got overloaded with data and started giving inconsistent readings. “It was a legacy network problem,” he said.
Then came the pitch. “This is an emergency,” Duffy told reporters, warning that “you will have more of these” unless lawmakers act. “I want $50 billion.”
