US air traffic halted for nearly five hours after radio network fault

The Federal Aviation Administration lifted a nationwide ground stop at 8:15 pm ET on 13 Nov 2026, after almost five hours in which nearly all departing flights in the United States were held. Officials said an outage in a network carrying radio frequencies used by air traffic controllers, affecting multiple control centres, caused the halt. More than 3,500 aircraft were airborne when the stop was imposed, and all landed safely, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Reports differ on the flight totals: one put cancellations at nearly 10,000 with over 7,000 delays, while a later report cited over 3,700 cancellations and about 2,000 delays on 14 Nov. Travellers faced long queues, and the disruption came less than two weeks before Thanksgiving.