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During a Saturday news conference explaining why the Federal Aviation Administration instituted a nationwide ground stop for all flights Friday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy claimed a technical issue may have occurred while federal telecommunications contractor L3Harris was doing work on an FAA telecommunications line.
“At least one of our remote FAA locations, a contractor was doing routine maintenance to switch telecommunication lines from old copper wire, and they were bringing it over to fiber. That contractor that does the work for us is L3Harris. They’re a legacy provider. They’ve been working for the FAA for over 20 years. … The network that we use at the FAA to control the airspace — L3Harris actually owns that network,” Duffy said Saturday.
The secretary continued to explain that while L3Harris was working to move the system out of the analog copper wire infrastructure into a digital framework via updated fiber optic cables, the FAA’s router at that location began experiencing a flood of data causing it to be overwhelmed — an issue that quickly spread to routers at other FAA air traffic control systems nationwide.
L3Harris, in a statement to Fox News Digital, said it was supporting the FAA’s investigations.
“L3Harris has been modernizing the communications infrastructure supporting the National Airspace System in close coordination with the FAA,” the company wrote. “With safety and reliability as our highest priorities, L3Harris, together with its telco partners and the FAA, has completed more than 70% of the planned airspace communications conversion from legacy copper wires to a fiber optic system.”
They added they are “supporting the FAA in its investigation to understand the conditions that led to the Nov. 13 ground stop of our nation’s air travel,” noting L3Harris “takes the nationwide ground stop and its impact on travelers, airlines and air traffic operations seriously.”
The Transportation Secretary said the FAA and Department of Transportation were working to determine whether L3Harris operator error caused the issue or if it happened because of a faulty router.
DUFFY SOUNDS ALARM OVER AGING FAA SYSTEM AFTER NATIONWIDE AIR TRAVEL SHUTDOWN
“What we’re working to determine was whether we had incompetence — meaning was it user error or installation error from L3Harris — or did they install a faulty router? We haven’t determined what the fault was. Was it the router, or were they not doing great work for us at L3Harris,” he said.
Duffy also seemed to pin the blame on L3Harris when asked if the government’s lead systems investigator oversaw the operation that led to the network failure.
“So this is L3Harris,” he replied.
“It’s our legacy telecom network. It’s owned by L3Harris. With our new architecture, with the money that we’re requesting, we will work with the greatest telecom companies in the world, which will be AT&T, Verizon and Lumen. They’re all working with us on the new architecture,” Duffy said. “But in the meantime, until I can build that, I’m stuck with L3Harris, who owns this network.”
In addition to working with the FAA on telecommunications since 2002, the company has a wide range of technologies and government partners.
According to its website, L3Harris provides advanced targeting and ordnance systems to the U.S. Department of Defense, and develops advanced ancillary weapon and electronic systems for military applications.
Some of those applications include ignition safety devices, proximity sensors and electronic fuzes.
The company is also one of the largest suppliers of tactical radios and other communications equipment to the U.S. military.
L3Harris is a publicly traded corporation with majority shareholders including major asset managers such as: BlackRock, which owns 10.21%; State Street, which owns 5.1%; and Vanguard, which owns just under 12%, split between its Vanguard Capital Management LLC and Vanguard Portfolio Management LLC.
The company recorded $6.1 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2026, according to its quarterly report.
L3Harris was formed in 2019 when defense and communications contractor Harris Corporation and L3 Technologies merged.
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The FAA and the Transportation Department did not immediately respond to FOX Business’ requests for comment.
