Democrats have a new target for congressional oversight as they prepare to assume the majority next year, with lawmakers promising to investigate what led to a nationwide ground stop on airline traffic
that disrupted travel plans for many Americans.
Democrats lashed out at President Donald Trump’s administration amid the airline debacle, accusing officials of incompetence and vowing to hold them accountable for the breakdown in the Federal Aviation Administration’s communications system.
“You brought the nation’s skies to a standstill. If you think Congressional Democrats will let you bury how this happened, you are sorely mistaken,” Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee wrote on social mediaNov. 13, responding to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s explanation for the ground stop.
“Preserve all documents and emails. Oversight is coming,” the Homeland Security Democrats’ post added.
Democrats on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee also were quick to call for an inquiry into the ground stop, which lasted more than four hours and affected thousands of flights.
“We need a full investigation by my committee… into this disastrous disruption of American air travel,” Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Pennsylvania, wrote on social media.
Mullin defended the Trump administration's response, saying officials moved at "unprecedented pace."
"This is what the leadership of President Trump looks like," Mullin said during a Nov. 13 press briefing at the White House, adding: "We're built to handle crises like this."
The massive disruption to airline traffic began Nov. 13 after the FAA started experiencing “instability for our radar and our communications" at 3:36 p.m. ET, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. The ground stop was issued at 3:45 p.m., according to the FAA administrator, and lifted at 8:15 p.m..
It was the second nationwide ground stop since the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001.
The details around what happened are still emerging. Duffy said during the Nov. 13 press briefing that outdated equipment was to blame.
“Our switches, our routers actually got overloaded with data,” Duffy said, adding: “They started to give us inconsistency in the data from those routers, and because of that we shut the system down.”
Mullin later said at the same briefing that “patches” were being applied to the old system when it failed.
“They were putting (in) new equipment and new technology,” Mullin said, adding “It was overwhelming the older system.”
The next day, Duffy said the problem stemmed from "routine maintenance" at a single “remote” location where a router was replaced as part of an ongoing effort to switch out old copper wires with fiber-optic cable. Duffy said the new router started “flooding other routers in our air traffic control system.”
The work was being performed by contractor L3 Harris, which owns the communications infrastructure, Duffy said.
“We haven’t determined what the fault was,” Duffy added. “Was it the router, or were they not doing great work for us at L3 Harris?”
Officials said there is no evidence of a cyber attack or intrusion by artificial intelligence.
The larger problem is that the FAA communications system is severely antiquated and needs to be upgraded, Duffy said in calling on Congress to fund improvements. Congress provided $12.5 billion for upgrades to the air traffic control system in 2025. Duffy said he needs $50 billion more.
Democrats questioned the Trump administration's funding priorities.
“You’ve literally controlled Congress for the past two years,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, wrote on social media.“And apparently, there’s always been money for vanity projects. But none to fix our air traffic control system?”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Democrats pledge to investigate nationwide aviation ground stop
