I usually miss it when some big mess breaks out on Friday evening. At that point, I’m unplugged and zoned out, watching a movie or tennis or reading a book. Well, on Friday, all hell broke loose within America’s airspace and among most of the US’s air traffic control stations. Thousands of flights were suddenly canceled and grounded as air travel came to an abrupt halt, the likes of which had not been seen since September 11, 2001. Rumors circulated that there was a cyberattack which took out the air-traffic control systems. Reality star and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that it was just the old-ass system. Duffy came out on Saturday with an even more bizarre explanation:

The communications failures that prompted Federal Aviation Administration officials to issue a nationwide ground stop started when L3 Harris, a contractor managing the agency’s telecoms network, made a standard upgrade at a remote air traffic location, federal officials said Saturday.

The contractor was conducting work on Friday that was needed to replace aging analog copper wire with more modern fiber optic cable, Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, told reporters. The “routine” task was being done at a location remote and small enough that officials assumed a Friday afternoon upgrade would pose no meaningful disruption to the air traffic, he said.

That presumption proved wrong, as the changeover from copper to fiber started flooding the system with levels of data it could not handle, triggering a cascade of communications failures across the air traffic facilities that manage the national air space. Officials, alarmed at the scope of the problems, decided to issue a rare nationwide ground stop for hours.

As of Saturday morning, administration officials still have not determined whether L3 Harris or shoddy equipment was at fault.

“What we’re working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning it was user error or installer error from L3 Harris, or did they install a faulty router?” Mr. Duffy told reporters. “We haven’t determined what the fault was.”

Representatives for L3 Harris did not immediately return email and phone requests for comment on Saturday.

[From The NY Times]

It’s one of two scenarios. Scenario #1: this was a buffet of human error, mechanical dysfunction, poor management and stupidity and now the administration is just throwing a government contractor under the MAGA bus. Scenario #2: this is all a dipsh-t cover story for something much more serious. I feel really sorry for all of the people who got stranded in an airport for hours and hours. What a mess.

The only silver lining is that Tyriq Withers and Daniel Kaluuya somehow found themselves stranded in Eugene, Oregon, and they ended up giving an interview to a local TV station. Tyriq called Daniel “my homegirl” (it’s from the excellent Bella Noche meme) and Daniel can’t keep it together. No one knows why they were together in Oregon though!! Some are theorizing that it’s some kind of top-secret Jordan Peele project.

Tyriq Withers references the “Bella Noche” meme while being interviewed with Daniel Kaluuya about the FAA’s nationwide ground stop:

“It’s upsetting me and my homegirl, because if you can’t go to the airport, where the hell can you go?” https://t.co/fH6fqucj1m

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) November 14, 2026

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.