Donald Trump is blaming former President Joe Biden’s administration for problems with America’s air traffic control system following a nationwide FAA ground stop on Friday, November 13, that disrupted thousands of flights.
In a Truth Social post Sunday, November 15, Trump called the Biden administration an “FAA disaster,” accusing it of spending heavily on an aging system without making it better. “Everything they touched turned bad,” he wrote.
Trump said his administration had a plan to improve flight control systems but needed more funding from Congress. “We need Congress to give the money, FAST!” he wrote, while praising the FAA’s current work.
The FAA issued the ground stop after telecommunications instability interfered with radar feeds and aircraft communications. The shutdown began around 3:30 p.m. Eastern on November 13, and flights began resuming at 8:15 p.m. that night.
According to the FAA, its aging network experienced a flood of approximately 1,000 connection attempts every four to five seconds. Investigators identified potential sources of the problem near a radar site in Amarillo, Texas, and a communications site in El Dorado, Arkansas. Contractor L3Harris had been working on network equipment at the Arkansas site.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said officials were investigating whether faulty equipment or contractor error caused the disruption. The FAA said the instability affected 17 of its 22 air route traffic control centers. About 3,500 aircraft landed safely.
The FAA reported approximately 12,462 flight cancellations on Friday, including 9,082 by major airlines, while noting that not all cancellations were directly caused by the ground stop.
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Trump’s criticism comes amid longstanding concerns about outdated aviation infrastructure. The infrastructure law signed by Biden in 2021 provided $25 billion toward airport and air traffic control improvements. Congress also approved $12.5 billion for FAA upgrades in 2025 under Trump.
Although Trump blamed the Biden administration, federal investigators have not determined that Biden-era decisions directly caused the November 13 outage. The investigation remains focused on telecommunications equipment and maintenance work.
The FAA says the network is stable and flights have resumed, though airlines continue recovering from the disruptions.
