Newshot U.S. Nationwide Flight Grounding Impact Persists for Multiple Days, Full Recovery Expected by Local Time November 16
IT之家 November 16 news, according to a report today by CCTV News, the U.S. air transport industry, after experiencing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) nationwide flight grounding incident, is expected to fully return to normal by local time November 16.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation 肖恩 · 达菲 (Sean Duffy) said on November 15 that although air transport has been gradually recovering, because a large number of aircraft and crew members deviated from their scheduled duty positions during the grounding period, airlines still need time to redeploy resources, and flight cancellations and delays are expected to continue for some time.
On local time November 13, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide flight grounding order due to a failure in the air traffic control communications system, lasting nearly 5 hours. The FAA lifted the grounding order at 20:15 that day, but the impact of the failure continued through the weekend. An FAA situation statement released on November 15 showed that during the grounding period, major U.S. airlines canceled about 12,462 flights, including about 9,082 cancellations by large airlines.
Duffy said in an interview with U.S. media including CBS on the 15th that there is currently no indication that the incident was caused by a cyberattack or external malicious activity, but the root cause of the failure is still under investigation. The Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and relevant law enforcement departments are participating in the investigation.
According to preliminary investigation information published by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the FAA, the failure may be related to a new router installed at a communications facility in El Dorado, Arkansas, during the replacement of old copper cables and the upgrade of fiber-optic lines. After the equipment was started, abnormal data broadcasting occurred on the network, affecting other routers and the air traffic control communications network.
Duffy said that during the failure, the system experienced more than 1,000 connection attempts every 4 to 5 seconds, interfering with communications between air traffic controllers and aircraft and affecting some radar data transmission. The FAA subsequently isolated the relevant equipment and disabled the data broadcasting function of 69 related routers nationwide, and network operation gradually returned to stability.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said the relevant maintenance work was handled by L3Harris, a long-term communications network contractor of the FAA, and it is not yet possible to determine whether the problem originated from a defect in the router equipment or from human error during installation and configuration. Duffy also said the relevant equipment has been sent to a laboratory for inspection, and investigators will further determine the cause of the failure.
As of November 15, U.S. air transport was still significantly affected. Reuters, citing flight tracking data, reported that more than 1,600 flights in the United States were canceled and nearly 3,600 were delayed that day. Duffy expects that airlines will need until the 16th to basically complete the redeployment of aircraft and crew members and restore flight operations to normal.
The incident has also once again drawn attention to the aging of the U.S. air traffic control system. Duffy said some of the routers involved were purchased as early as 2001, and the relevant equipment was already considered obsolete by 2006, but continued to be used afterward. He believes that the long-term lack of necessary updates to the U.S. air traffic control communications network is one of the important problems exposed by this failure.
On November 15, Duffy once again called on Congress to provide additional funding to comprehensively upgrade the U.S. air traffic control communications network. He said the $12.5 billion previously approved by Congress (IT之家 note: at current exchange rates about 83.621 billion yuan) already has a clear purpose, mainly for upgrading existing air traffic control infrastructure, and cannot cover the construction of a new communications network and airspace management software system, so the government still needs additional appropriations.
Duffy said that if the required funding is obtained, the new communications network is expected to be completed between the end of 2028 and the first quarter of 2029. He hopes Congress can advance the relevant appropriations before the end of 2026 so that subsequent construction work can start as soon as possible.
U.S. President Trump also called on Congress on social media on the 15th to approve funding for upgrading the air traffic control system. He said that many pieces of equipment in the existing U.S. air traffic control system have been in use for decades, and the upgrade work should not continue to be advanced in a phased, piecemeal manner, but should be completed in one go as much as possible. Trump said the U.S. government has already started the relevant work, and if Congress approves the funding, construction of the new system can be accelerated.
A report previously released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) also pointed out that the modernization of the U.S. air traffic control system has long faced progress and management problems. The agency's latest report released on September 14, 2026, said that the Federal Aviation Administration has been trying to upgrade the air traffic control system since the 1980s, but progress has been limited. The report, citing the agency's previous assessment data, pointed out that of the 138 air traffic control systems managed by the U.S. FAA, more than 75% were deemed unsustainable or at risk of being unsustainable.
The GAO pointed out that U.S. air traffic controllers need to manage as many as 45,000 flights per day, with work involving communications, weather monitoring, navigation and radar surveillance, among other links. Old and unreliable technology has already affected flight operations and may further increase the risk of flight delays and aviation safety incidents.
The U.S. FAA is currently advancing a modernization plan called the "Brand New Air Traffic Control System" (BNATCS). According to a GAO report released in September, the plan is divided into two phases. The first phase involves upgrades to communications, surveillance, weather and training systems, which the FAA plans to complete by December 2028. In July 2025, the U.S. Congress already appropriated $12.5 billion for the plan, with most of the funding used for first-phase construction.
However, the GAO also warned that the FAA has not yet established a complete and reliable full-life-cycle cost estimate for the project, nor does it have a detailed integrated master schedule. If cost and schedule management problems are not resolved, the modernization effort may still be delayed, and the FAA may continue to rely on old equipment for a longer period.
The GAO also pointed out that the FAA has repeatedly encountered problems such as cost overruns, schedule delays and failure to achieve goals in modernization projects over the past decades. This communications failure, which occurred during routine line upgrades, also highlights the complexity of equipment replacement and network migration in old systems under continuous operation.
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