The top United States transportation official has said work being performed on an antiquated telecommunications system could be to blame for a rare, hours-long US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ground stop that halted all air traffic inside the country.
At a news conference in Washington, DC, on Saturday, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spoke about routine maintenance that was performed on Friday to upgrade a router from copper to fibre at a “very remote location”.
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Duffy said “contractor error or a faulty piece of equipment” caused the router in question to start flooding other ones in the country’s air traffic control system.
“We had 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds,” he told reporters at the Department of Transportation.
When those connection issues caused disruption in radar feeds and communications between air traffic controllers and aeroplanes, Duffy said a ground stop was ordered.
“When we see that, your safety is paramount. We shut down the airspace,” he said.
The Transportation Department identified the contractor of Friday’s maintenance as L3Harris, a US-based aerospace and defence company that has been tasked with modernising the communications system for the FAA.
“What we’re working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning was it … installator error from L3Harris? Or did they install a faulty router?” Duffy said. “We haven’t determined what the fault was.”
Duffy added that L3Harris, which he said had performed decades of work for the FAA, “didn’t meet the moment”.
“They own this network. They’re our prime contractor. I can’t go somewhere else. They own it,” he said. “Or was it a faulty router? And we’re going to find that out. And frankly, we’re going to hold people accountable.”
In response to Duffy’s allegations, L3Harris told Al Jazeera it has been working “in close coordination with the FAA” and places safety and reliability as its “highest priorities”.
“We are supporting the FAA in its investigation to understand the conditions that led to the November 13 ground stop of our nation’s air travel,” a spokesperson for the company said. “L3Harris takes the nationwide ground stop and its impact on travellers, airlines and air traffic operations seriously.”
Amid concerns that Friday’s ground stop was the result of a cyberattack, the US government said Saturday it did not “believe” that was the cause.
“Once we were able to isolate the work being done at this location, all of our systems came back online,” Duffy said. “So, we don’t believe this was cyber at all.”
The head of the FAA, who also spoke at Saturday’s news conference, echoed the transportation secretary’s remarks, saying the system outage was caused by an equipment error.
“We see zero evidence of anything nefarious, and zero evidence of anything AI-related,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said.
A root cause analysis would be shared with the public when it is available, he added.
As airlines and thousands of travellers begin the process of digging out from Friday’s groundstop, the longest and only second nationwide stop since 9/11, the FAA said full schedule integrity is expected by the end of Sunday.
“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 the FAA expects about 4,000 to 5,000 flights out of the 41,000 scheduled on Saturday to be cancelled.
“That will set us up for a full recovery tomorrow,” he said. “I do think the worst is behind us.”

Sean Duffy’s emergency news conference was hard to watch for one White House veteran.
A longtime White House official has deemed Sean Duffy’s car crash of a press briefing “perhaps the worst” he has ever seen.
The Transportation Secretary is facing calls to resign after his bizarre response to a four-hour ground stop that is expected to cause travel disruptions for days—a response that has left former White House counter-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke baffled.
In an interview with CNN’s Michael Smerconish, Clarke insisted that the news conference featuring Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin “did not inspire confidence.”
“It was perhaps the worst crisis communications press conference I have ever seen,” he said. “That includes a lot of county sheriffs that have been given press conferences on active shooter situations.”
Clarke served for a decade on the National Security Council and supported several presidents, including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Barack Obama, meaning he has been around for a fair few pressers.
He further called for a “much more complete explanation” as tens of thousands of passengers are still suffering the brunt of the cancellations and delays.
Duffy blamed the “incredibly” old air traffic control system after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued the nationwide stoppage for all flights on Friday.
“This is analog telecom. Our switches, our routers actually got overloaded with data, and they went down,” he explained.
Contradicting Mullin, he then denied that a new tech rollout was behind the gargantuan failure.
Both appeared to rule out a cyber-attack and confirmed that everybody was safe, but Clarke insisted that it was too early to rule out cyber at this stage.
“First of all, you should never rule out cyber until you’ve done a forensic analysis or root cause analysis, and they haven’t had time to do that,” the expert said. “So saying we don’t know what it is, but it wasn’t cyber, or we think it was this, but it wasn’t cyber. It’s too early to say that. The American people need an explanation.”
This comes as Duffy held a second press conference today—again arguing that an AI scheduling tool or a malicious attack is not to blame.
He said that L3Harris—an FAA contractor which operates the systems—was working on telecommunications maintenance at the time.
“We are working to determine whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error or installer error from L3Harris, or did they install a faulty router?” the secretary said.
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At a White House news conference, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy insisted that the U.S. has the “safest airspace in the world” but also suggested an incident like Friday’s ground stop would happen again and that flying will continue being “less safe” unless Congress provides funding for flight system advancement.
“We didn’t think we would have this kind of outage,” Duffy said. “The systems that were deployed kept everybody safe — everyone landed. We’re able to review what went wrong and then reboot the system and go. But you will have more of these. You will have more of them unless the American people and the Congress tell us to build.”
Duffy called on Congress to provide $50 billion for a “complete overhaul” of the system.
Passengers at Chicago Midway International Airport continued dealing with delays and travel disruptions after a nationwide ground stop was lifted by the Federal Aviation Administration, though many expressed relief as operations began returning to normal.
According to FlightAware, more than 170 flights at Midway were delayed at one point during the disruption, with wait times approaching 90 minutes. Even after the ground stop ended, some travelers faced lengthy waits to retrieve their luggage.
Standing near baggage claim, passengers who had been forced to land at Midway during the nationwide disruption waited to collect their belongings and continue their journeys. One passenger said airport officials told them it could take hours before luggage would be available.
Airport operations gradually resumed as travelers moved through security checkpoints and headed toward delayed departures.
“We’re hoping our flight is still on time. It hasn’t changed that it wasn’t on time,” one traveler said.
Earlier in the day, aircraft sat grounded on the tarmac for hours as passengers remained in the terminal awaiting updates.
“They’re saying they’re not taking any checked bags, at this time, which is probably for the best in case there is any cancellations. It’ll probably be chaotic getting everybody’s stuff after that,” said Khy Sline, a Midway passenger traveling to Atlanta.
Jeremy Lancaster, a passenger headed to Georgia, said he did not realize there was a problem until he arrived at the airport.
“Actually, I didn’t find out until I walked in. I went to the counter for my flight, and they told me they weren’t checking in and I thought to myself, ‘Oh, that’s strange.’ And I kept looking around. People were standing still and I thought to myself, ‘Something is not right,'” Lancaster said.
Midway is Chicago’s only airport served by Southwest Airlines. The airline said in a statement that it was working closely with the FAA while trying to reduce the impact on customers.
Despite the delays and uncertainty, some travelers said patience was the best response to the situation.
“It ain’t even no need in getting mad, blowing up, none of that. Just be patient because you were blessed enough to— you know what I’m saying? We’re still here. Had we been in the air and something went wrong. Just be patient,” said Jasean McMillon, a passenger traveling to Los Angeles.
Some passengers who missed their flights said they planned to stay overnight at nearby hotels, while others chose to drive to their destinations as Midway worked through the aftermath of the disruption.
More than 700 flights were canceled at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on Friday and many more were delayed after a nationwide Federal Aviation Administration ground stop disrupted air travel, prompting some passengers to abandon their plans, rent cars or return home.
Long lines formed throughout the airport as travelers dealt with the fallout from an hours-long ground stop that disrupted flight schedules and travel plans.
“It’s just been confusing. We heard on our way to the airport, and we’re just not sure what to do at this point,” passenger Kimaya Chalpe said.
Passenger Lewis Murphy described the situation as “Really, really frustrating. You know, on a Friday, one of the busiest days of the week. Everybody’s now stuck here.”
Among those affected was Bill Kalbac of Forest Park, who said he spent three-and-a-half hours on a plane waiting to depart before the aircraft returned to the gate. He then joined a long line at baggage claim seeking information about his luggage.
“So far they’ve told us that there’s more luggage than people available to take it off the plane, so we’re just trying to figure out what’s the next step?” Kalbac said.
The disruptions began around 3 p.m., when the FAA issued a ground stop at airports across the United States, citing an air traffic control communications issue.
The issue involved the nation’s Air Route Traffic Control Centers, which are responsible for managing flights at 18,000 feet and above.
“You can get the planes to take off and land but once they’re in the air the problem seems to be ‘how do you communicate with them so they can safely continue on their journey?'” said Sheldon Jacobson, a University of Illinois professor.
The ground stop also affected arriving flights. Former ABC 7 reporter Christian Piekos said that after landing at O’Hare, he remained on his aircraft for two hours because all gates were occupied by other waiting planes.
“I’m mean, there’s really nothing else that we can do right now other than sit and be patient and just try to figure out where we’re going next,” Piekos said.
The ground stop was lifted shortly before 7:30 p.m., but for many travelers the change came too late to salvage their plans.
“When I hear ‘unprecedented’ on Friday the 13th, it’s a little intimidating, so I just went and rebooked for tomorrow,” passenger Heidi Wintrble said.
Houston-bound traveler Joey Garza said, “My plan basically is to get a car, get behind the wheel.”
Some passengers said the disruption, occurring just before the busy holiday travel season, had shaken their confidence in flying.

All eyes are on Starship as SpaceX considers whether to allow the vehicle to continue on its flight path — aiming to make an unprecedented landing back at its launch tower tomorrow — or whether the company will be forced to bring the vehicle home early.
On each of the three health checks SpaceX had planned for Starship’s journey in orbit, it will be carefully analyzing a suite of data: “They include Raptor engine health, loss of power or communications, the health of the flight computers and navigation sensors, the structural integrity of the propellant tanks and feedlines, the ability to hold tank pressure, and Starship’s ability to control its attitude,” SpaceX said in a post on its website.
The Starship spacecraft made it all the way to orbit insertion today without any major issues.
It was a stark departure from Flight 14 in September. SpaceX pushed forward with that mission, giving the green light for the vehicle to reach orbit even with one rocket engine on the spacecraft malfunctioning.
Starship didn’t need that engine for any future burns — but it was a surprising decision given how conservative the company’s criteria had been.
CEO Elon Musk said at an October conference that the engine outage was caused by a “failure in the engine computer software.”
We asked a former SpaceX employee about that moment.
“Sometimes in that software, the tolerances can be like a little too tight,” said Austin Spiegel, a former lead software engineer at SpaceX and now co-founder and CEO of the software startup Sift.
That’s why previous flight data is so important, he emphasized. Flight controllers “can reference that test data to understand the performance characteristics of the engine, so that when it comes time to launch the vehicle, they actually have a much deeper understanding of how the engine is going to perform.”
That can give engineers the confidence to proceed — even in less-than-ideal scenarios, Spiegel said.
The only engine issue during Flight 15 that SpaceX divulged on the broadcast Friday was related to the Super Heavy rocket booster, which saw one of its 33 engines flame out prematurely. It’s not clear if additional issues cropped up when SpaceX decided to dispose of the booster in the ocean rather than attempt to recover the vehicle by steering it back to the launch tower on dry land.
During SpaceX’s last Starship test flight in September, the company sought to fly Starship on an orbital — rather than a “passively safe” suborbital trajectory — for the first time.
It was a nail-biter.
SpaceX had made clear that it needed to ensure the Starship spacecraft, or ship, was working as intended before allowing the vehicle to relight its engines and head for orbit. But minutes into flight, one of the ship’s engines shut down prematurely and was deemed out of service.
Initially, mission controllers — and even the broadcaster on SpaceX’s own livestream — said the company would forgo the second engine burn, opting not to risk sending the vehicle to orbit.
But Musk prompted mission controllers to reconsider, according to a SpaceX- produced video released November 6.
“The moment we lost the engine, we all kind of knew this was the end of the mission for the ship. We had thought, ‘Hey, let’s not proceed if anything goes wrong,” said Jeremy Pedro, SpaceX’s director of Starship propulsion systems.
But Musk pushed back.
In a statement, the FAA said SpaceX’s decisions were “within approved flight criteria.”
“FAA monitored all activities associated with the conduct of the licensed launch and reentry,” the agency said.
One of the most consequential milestones of this mission happened when SpaceX decided whether to give Starship the green light to burn its engines for a second time — propelling it fast enough to enter orbit around Earth.
SpaceX did just that about 25 minutes after liftoff on Friday.
Getting through that step — and watching over Starship now as it flies through orbit — means grappling with numerous, often incalculable risks.
Any time SpaceX sends a Starship spacecraft to orbit, mission teams must take extreme care to ensure the vehicle can also make a controlled return to Earth. Otherwise, the ship could make an unpredictable plunge back home that could threaten people or property.
Reaching orbit is still a novel milestone for Starship. It attempted to do so for the first time on the last test flight in September — and was able to under less-than-ideal conditions.
Before that, SpaceX had only flown Starship on “passively safe” suborbital test flights. That meant that “even if control over the spacecraft was completely lost, it was already on a path to reenter the atmosphere and splash down in a pre-determined location,” the company said.
Once going orbital, however, that “pre-determined location” aspect is lost.
If SpaceX were to lose contact and control of Starship once it’s traveling more than 20 times the speed of sound through orbit, the vehicle would be subject to the whims of atmospheric drag.
That means that predicting when and how the vehicle returns to Earth is far more difficult and dangerous — potentially putting Starship on a collision course with people or property.
That’s why SpaceX has set up several check-ins with options to intentionally bring Starship home early if any signs of issues arise — but the company hasn’t needed to do that yet.
Usually, when a rocket is flying with a valuable payload to space, companies like SpaceX make clear that recovering rocket parts is only icing on the cake.
Throughout the vast majority of rocketry history, nothing has been reusable.
SpaceX has long sought to change that. It first began spearheading reusability with its Falcon rockets.
But the company has also said that Falcon’s reusability isn’t necessary — just nice to have because it saves a lot of money. If SpaceX failed to recover a Falcon booster, but the rocket safely delivered a payload to orbit, the mission was still deemed fully successful.
With Starship, however, that ethos almost feels inverted.
This vehicle was designed to be fully reusable — from top to bottom — and the economics of Starship depend on SpaceX figuring out how to make that a reality.
So during these test flights, gathering data that can help SpaceX learn to consistently recapture and refly both the Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft has been the name of the game. Making headway toward full reusability is the primary goal.
“Reaching this milestone with Starship will allow SpaceX to unlock the true capability of Starship,” the company said in a statement.
Delivering a batch of SpaceX’s own Starlink satellites to orbit? Today, that’s practically just the cherry on top.
But it’s a fairly big cherry: During the last Starship test flight in September, the vehicle “deployed 26 terabits per second of Starlink bandwidth,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said during an earnings call. “So a single Starship launch, which wasn’t even fully loaded — it was about maybe half loaded — it did the equivalent of 10 Falcon 9 launches.”
This mission is far from over. But NASA chief Jared Isaacman took to social media to lend a congratulations to SpaceX for the flight so far.
It’s still not clear why exactly SpaceX opted not to attempt to land the booster back at the launch tower. And NASA will certainly be keeping a close eye on how the Starship spacecraft performs as it continues on this 22-hour test flight because the agency needs this spaceship to be ready for a crucial moon landing test next year, called Artemis III.
But Isaacman did specifically call out one highlight of the mission so far: Successfully deploying Starlink internet satellites.
NASA also intends to test internet connectivity during the Artemis III mission next year.
SpaceX is attempting to check off some major testing milestones during this flight.
But there are still uncertainties and engineering challenges ahead — specifically when it comes to questions about how Starship will power itself to the moon.
SpaceX has long acknowledged that Starship will need to be topped off with fuel as it sits in Earth orbit. Otherwise, the ship wouldn’t have enough gas to get to the moon.
That will require SpaceX to transfer super-chilled cryogenic propellants between vehicles in space — something that’s never been done before.
Under a recently released NASA timeline, SpaceX is expected to make its first demonstration of propellant transfers in early 2027.
Notably, to get to the moon, it won’t require just one transfer. Experts previously estimated the number of refueling tankers that SpaceX would need to launch for a single moon mission was somewhere between 10 and 40.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk weighed in on the issue last month, asserting the actual number was more around six to eight launches.
NASA officials backed up that estimate during a recent news conference. But they noted a final figure likely cannot be known until after propellant transfer testing is done.
NASA chief Jared Isaacman also said that the space agency is working “shoulder to shoulder” with SpaceX and has lent subject matter expertise from its Marshall Space Flight Center to help with the cryogenic propellant transfer.
Sonic booms are a natural part of rocket launches — but they’re especially noticeable and prevalent when a vehicle is coming home from space.
The Super Heavy booster already returned in a fiery splashdown on Friday, resulting in a gunshot-like bang that ripped out over South Texas. Another boom might echo across the region as SpaceX still aims to bring back the Starship spacecraft on Saturday.
“A sonic boom is a brief, thunder-like noise a person on the ground hears when an aircraft or other vehicle in the area flies faster than the speed of sound. The sonic boom does not present a health risk and what people experience will depend on weather and other conditions,” SpaceX said on its website.
While SpaceX has sought to encourage locals to think of sonic booms as inspiring sounds, ringing in a new era of space exploration, researchers have found the noise levels could be detrimental.
Researchers reported in a study published last year that sonic booms at the level Super Heavy gives off may include potential hearing damage for people nearby and minor structural problems for buildings in the area.
A group of residents have also banded together to file a lawsuit against SpaceX, claiming that sonic booms, noise and vibrations associated with Starship launches have caused structural damage to their homes. In August, the court denied SpaceX’s motion to dismiss the case.
Starship reached an “early return” checkpoint.
SpaceX predetermined three of these milestones, during which mission controllers will compile all the vehicle data and decide whether the vehicle is in good enough shape to continue the flight.
If not, flight controllers can opt to bring the vehicle home early to a splashdown in the ocean.
This first checkpoint occurred as the mission clock hit 1 hour, 27 minutes and 46 seconds. There have been no reported issues so far, but if errors were to arise — at a checkpoint — mission controllers could choose to deorbit the vehicle for a splashdown.
SpaceX polled “Go” to proceed past this first return check. The company said on its webcast that it’s on track to be the longest Starship mission ever flown.
Starlink already has about 13 million internet customers on Earth.
But now the company appears to be considering an extension of its services — to the moon.
On a future Starship flight, SpaceX plans to “deliver some of their Starlink satellites beyond the orbits that they normally do for Starlink or Starship operations,” said Carlos García-Galán, NASA’s moon base program manager, during a November 7 news conference. “And they’re going to test long-range communication capabilities.”
Those test satellites won’t be permanent, García-Galán noted. But, if they’re successful, it could pave the way for SpaceX to eventually provide some communications services — perhaps to NASA’s planned moon base on the lunar surface and/or to spacecraft operating in the far reaches of Earth orbit.
NASA also said it’s testing communications systems with Houston-based Intuitive Machines and the Jeff Bezos-backed company Blue Origin.
Some of the 26 Starlink V3 satellites that Starship is deploying today are doing double duty: Before they go on to beam internet service to some of SpaceX’s 12 million internet customers, a few of these devices will play a role in researching how today’s test flight is going.
“Three of the satellites have been modified with a suite of cameras to scan Starship’s heatshield and transmit imagery down to operators,” SpaceX said on its website.
The heat shield is a vital component. It’s designed to protect the upper Starship spacecraft as it navigates the violent physics of reentering Earth’s thick inner atmosphere while traveling at speeds that can top 17,000 miles per hour.
SpaceX has used departing Starlink satellites equipped with cameras to help keep an eye on Starship’s heat shield before. In the past, that data has been valuable because SpaceX has typically had to discard of Starship in the ocean after flight — so gathering as much data as possible while it’s in the air became a huge draw.
But today, the images those Starlink cameras take will serve a new important role: helping SpaceX determine whether the vehicle is in good enough shape to make a landing attempt back at the South Texas launch site — an event that could happen tomorrow.
That trip will require Starship to travel over populated areas of Texas and Mexico, so being in working order is vital.
Though the Super Heavy booster didn’t quite meet the fate SpaceX had hoped — opting to do a splashdown in the Gulf rather than go in for a landing at the company’s launch tower — the Starship spacecraft is still going strong.
“Everything is looking good,” said SpaceX’s Jesse Anderson.
But before we can even think about getting excited about seeing the Starship craft come back for landing tomorrow — there’s a key hurdle ahead.
SpaceX soon has to decide if Starship is in good enough shape for orbit insertion.
SpaceX’s Dan Huot said there is no indication right now that won’t happen. During the last flight in September, it was pretty touch and go and the spacecraft had an abrupt engine outage — but it did wind up going to orbit.

RALEIGH, N.C. — NC State officially announced the hiring of Philip Rivers as its next football head coach on Friday following a Board of Trustees vote to approve his contract. Rivers signed a five-year deal that will pay him a combined $3.25 million during his first year and grow by a minimum of $200,000 annually.
Over the course of his contract, Rivers will make $18.25 million from NC State over five years.
Rivers’ deal runs through Dec. 31, 2031 and will be an annual base salary of $2,437,500 per season with a supplemental compensation of $812,500 per year. That comes up to the full salary of $3.25 million and will grow by $100,000 for each of the portions of the salary.
The contract was released to Pack Power after a public records request to NC State. Read the full details below.
Among the incentives from NC State, Rivers can earn up to $100,000 each year for the Federal Graduation Rate being at 100 percent, $100,000 per year for the four-year Graduation Success Rate being at 100 percent, and another $100,000 for the Academic Progress Rate being at 1000.
As for on-field success incentives, Rivers will earn $50,000 for eight wins, $100,000 for nine wins, $150,000 for 10 wins, $200,000 for 11 wins and $250,000 for 12 or more wins. He can also net $50,000 for playing in a non-College Football Playoff bowl game, $100,000 for winning a non-CFP bowl game and $300,000 for playing in the first round of the College Football Playoff. He’ll add $75,000 for each additional round of the College Football Playoff, and earn $1 million for a National Championship win.
Earning ACC Coach of the Year would add another $50,000 to his contract while National Coach of the Year by any publication would earn $100,000. Read the full contract above for all other benefits and non-salary compensations, which include two courtesy vehicles, 20 tickets for every game, six men’s basketball tickets for any regular season game and travel for his “accompanying spouse and dependents” being provided by NC State.
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