Repair of old copper wiring caused US flight disruption: Trump administration
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Travellers wait in line at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Nov 14 in New York. Flight cancellations and delays continue into the weekend following a nationwide FAA groundstop.
PHOTO: AFP
- US Transport Secretary Sean Duffy said it is “safe to fly” after a nationwide ground stop, but warned more delays and cancellations as airlines move planes, crews and stranded passengers.
- More than 20,000 flights were hit on Nov 13, with over 3,800 US cancellations and 2,100 delays on Nov 14, according to FlightAware.
- The chaos has raised concerns about ageing US air traffic systems and possible cyber risks, while lawmakers call for investigations and the FAA asks travellers for patience.
AI generated
Washington – Weary travellers braced for more flight disruptions on Nov 14 as service resumed from US airports after an hours-long stoppage that the Trump administration blamed on faulty equipment or an error by a contractor tasked with switching out old copper wire communication lines.
The Nov 13 nationwide ground stop – meaning no planes can take off – sparked widespread chaos and left hundreds of thousands of passengers in limbo, with some pulled off planes moments before departure by airline staff who appeared in the dark about unfolding events.
“Tired. Exhausted. Frustrated. Yeah, you know, it’s just a mess, right?” Lisa Beraid, 48, who works for an insurance company, told AFP, as she waited for a flight the morning of Nov 14 at New York’s La Guardia airport.
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) chief Bryan Bedford said that 12,000 flights were cancelled on Nov 13 and between four and five thousand flights out of 41,000 scheduled for Nov 14 were likely to be cancelled as well.
By early afternoon, tracking website FlightAware had recorded at least 5,000 cancelled flights for Nov 14.
Speaking at a news conference in Washington, Bedford offered a “sincere apology to the American travelling public.”
He predicted a full resumption of flight schedules by “close of business on Sunday.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Nov 13’s four-hour ground stop was declared after maintenance work to upgrade an old copper wire to a high-speed fibre cable had caused “issues” with communication with airplanes and radar feeds.
“Either through contractor error or a faulty piece of equipment...it started flooding other routers in our air traffic control system,” Duffy told reporters.
In another embarrassment, the Nov 14 news conference – where administration officials also appealed for more funds to upgrade outdated systems – was delayed due to technical problems with the audio feed.
Returning to normal
Nov 13’s disruption was only the second time such a ground stoppage had been issued in US airspace – which is among the busiest in the world – since the 9/11 attacks.
A traveller looks at flight information screens at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, on Nov 14, 2026.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
The nationwide halt was lifted at 8.15pm Eastern Time on Nov 14 (9.15am on Nov 15, Singapore time).
During the outage, footage from airports showed gates full, with planes waiting on taxiways and passengers thronging concourses, desperate for information.
FAA officials reopened the airspace “after restoring full functionality” at air traffic control facilities, according to Duffy.
He sought to assure Americans early Nov 14 that it remains “safe to fly” but warned it would take time to resume normal service.
Tim Johnson, consumer director at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, said that while US flights have resumed, “there may be some follow-on disruption as airlines work to re-book affected passengers and get all services back to normal.”
At La Guardia airports, some travellers were more sanguine than others about the continued disruption of their flights.
“We’re stuck here for the next, I don’t know, 36 hours,” said Pat Curlett, a 62-year-old Ford worker, early Nov 14.
Travellers wait in line at a ticket counter at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Nov 14 in New York City.
PHOTO: AFP
“No one expects the whole airline system to go down,” said 77-year-old traveler Steven Rathe, who was waiting to embark on a four-leg trip from New York to Albuquerque.
“We’re lucky it wasn’t longer. So they’re flying today and for that I’m grateful.”
Ageing infrastructure
The ground stop not only plunged US air travel into chaos, it has raised serious concerns about the country’s ageing infrastructure.
Duffy appealed for US$50 billion (S$64 billion) in funds to upgrade and modernize the air traffic control system, and called for Congress, which controls the purse-strings of the US government, to “meet this moment.”
“Cut the crap,” retorted Illinois state governor and prominent Democrat, JB Pritzker, on X. “Trump and Republicans have controlled Congress and could have funded the system.”
New York state Governor Kathy Hochul called on Duffy to resign or be fired by Trump, writing on X: “We’re fortunate no lives were lost.”
US lawmakers called for investigations into what caused the massive disruption and whether the country is adequately secure from cyber criminality.
“If today proves anything, it’s that we need to update our air traffic control system & rebuild our airport infrastructure,” Republican Senator Eric Schmitt said on X.
President Donald Trump was uncharacteristically quiet about the outage that had knock-on effects for international flights to and from the United States.
As of midday Nov 14, he had made no public statement about the ground stop. AFP