‘Duffy Lied’: Air traffic controllers refute Trump Transportation Secretary’s ground stop explanation. “I’ve spoken with 60 air traffic controllers tonight about what Sean Duffy said at the White House today,” said one journalist. “None of them are buying what he said.”

[u/Capitalclysm]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/duffy-ground-stop-explanation

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[u/supercyberlurker]

An incompetent project 2025 loyalist publicly lied to cover up their incompetence.

Let's throw it on the gigantic debt pile we've been putting off paying to justice.

[u/Falala-Surprise-90 → u/supercyberlurker]

Lies and asks for $50 billion to fix something he screwed up yet cant explain exactly what the problem is or how it will be fixed… this is a scam

[u/shibiwan → u/Falala-Surprise-90]

The $50 billion is for his boss.

That's how Sean ensures that his job is secure for the next two years.

[u/moremild_lesswild → u/shibiwan]

50 billion to the company who funded his sons house campaign

[u/drawkbox → u/moremild_lesswild]

Yeah the issue was a setup to try to get money before Congress switches over. Basically extortion attempts with a "would be a shame if something were to happen" to all air transportation. That is what you get with a reality TV president and transportation secretary who turned gov't and trade into a mafia world like system like in Russia.

[u/vapidamerica → u/drawkbox]

Every day, sliding closer to rogue nation status. Terrifying how quickly they’re able to do this.

[u/DonutHoles4Ever → u/shibiwan]

The dems better do something about this. Block the money. INVESTIGATE AND PROSECUTE.

God I cant believe we have 2 more years of Trump getting away with everything because the DOJ and Supreme Court and 60% of the politicians in the USA are all bought and sold.

[u/shibiwan → u/DonutHoles4Ever]

Well, could start by impeaching Clarence Thomas for bribery. That could shake up SCOTUS some.

[u/juliuspepperwoodchi → u/Falala-Surprise-90]

I mean, FAA and ATC absolutely need billions in investments and upgrades, but that's not what caused this...and this admin ain't the ones to fix it.

[u/CyclonusRIP → u/Falala-Surprise-90]

In capitalism generally the one who says the most shit is wrong is the one who wins. Why would you only pay someone 30 billion when another friend could make it 50 billion better?

[u/snertwith2ls → u/Falala-Surprise-90]

Not surprising really. My take on it is Duffy wants in on the Trump grift machine. How much of that $50billion will end up in his and his family/friends pockets??

[u/Googleitgenius2 → u/Falala-Surprise-90]

Its their "media plan",,, team trump knows the Democrats are gonna need/try to get billions in funding for helping folks with healthcare cuts/cost on Jan 1st 2027 when the cuts (BBB) actually kick in.

Team trump asshats needed to CREATE a problem that will grab the media in parroting the BS of

"we just cant afford to do that right now", aviation is in trouble blah blah.

[u/remi_twee → u/supercyberlurker]

yeah that debt ile just keeps getting biggre, like no one even pretends we're gonna deal wiith it

[u/cheerful_cynic → u/remi_twee]

Burn it all to the ground, drain the swamp forreal 

Build a fresh capital with climate change brought into consideration for the location 

build a room with more than 435 fucking desks

[u/WhyMustIMakeANewAcco → u/remi_twee]

The FAA is chronically underfunded.

If you believe they intend to actually use any funds directed there due to this extortion on the actual FAA I have some enriched uranium to sell you.

Note: I do not, in fact, possess enriched uranium, feds.

[u/ffchusky → u/supercyberlurker]

Incompetence would imply this wasn't done on purpose. I don't think this was an accident

[u/bob-leblaw → u/ffchusky]

The scam is on purpose. But how they are going about it is incompetent as fuck.

[u/Akimbo_Zap_Guns]

Can confirm my brother is an ATC and he said the government is covering up something cause they had no updates scheduled to the systems and even if they did they would roll them out at 4am not 3pm. For what it’s worth he believes it was a cyber attack

[u/chaekinman → u/Akimbo_Zap_Guns]

I believe you, but on the flip side late Friday afternoon deploys are totally on track for this admin

[u/IT_Chef → u/chaekinman]

It's the holiday season...every IT vendor knows you don't deploy this time of year (unless absolutely necessary). You wait until a couple/few weeks into January.

Thanksgiving travel is gonna be fucked.

But hey, at least DOGE removed/flagged things like "at risk, diesel, segregated, diversify, statuses, disparate impact" out of tons of government documents without understanding the context right?!

[u/Ok_Hornet_714 → u/IT_Chef]

Some members of Congress wrote a letter to Duffy back in October looking for more information/transparency about the tests. They state (among other things) that their understanding is that the pilot would be for 90 and started in late September, which would put the pilot ending just before Christmas.

https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/ocasio-cortez-evo.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/faa-smart-letter-final.pdf

So the among the real questions is why did the pilot get shortened and then rolled out all at once instead of a phased approach?

[u/Fauxreigner_ → u/chaekinman]

Or "oops I accidentally pushed to prod".

[u/TweakedNipple → u/Fauxreigner_]

Big Balls strikes again

[u/ajmartin527 → u/TweakedNipple]

I’d almost forgotten about ol big balls.

[u/Competitive_Sort1682 → u/chaekinman]

Apparently the administration can’t get the basics right, but at least they’re consistent about missing deadlines. Late Friday deploys are the one thing they seem to have mastered.

[u/You_meddling_kids → u/chaekinman]

I hate defending these clowns, but these kinds of decisions get made at a much lower level. I doubt the secretary has any clue what this system is or how it operates.

That being said, I wouldn't put it past them to cover up a cyber attack by pinning it on a contractor

[u/Space_Pirate_R → u/You_meddling_kids]

 these kinds of decisions get made at a much lower level.

Somebody at the top is responsible for hiring NepoCrony Control Systems Ltd. who are totally the most suitable company for the job and definitely have the most qualified people and the best lower level decision making.

[u/You_meddling_kids → u/Space_Pirate_R]

They're pinning it on L3, which isn't a crony org, but it could be a sub contractor, who knows. Totally wouldn't trust any info from this regime.

[u/dainman → u/You_meddling_kids]

The L3 I used to know was a fiber backbone internet company, but I don't know if it's the same company or have any useful idea of how it might factor into what happened.

[u/marinuss → u/dainman]

You're thinking of Level3 which was a telecommunications company that was bought up by CenturyLink. L3 today is L3Harris and is a defense contractor. They do everything. They make the tactical radios used for the military for an example. They make the StingRay system that's used to setup fake intercepting cell towers. Missiles. Basically everything a defense company would.

[u/You_meddling_kids → u/dainman]

They still do that. Data infrastructure, fiber cables, custom networks, internet peering stations.

[u/tearemoff → u/dainman]

Level3 Communication -- the telco -- is now Lumen after being acquired by CenturyLink.

The vendor in question is L3Harris.

[u/kafktastic → u/You_meddling_kids]

Why would they cover up a cyber attack? They could pin it on any group they want. It’s a much better excuse than incompetence

[u/You_meddling_kids → u/kafktastic]

They're saying the contractor did it. They wouldn't want to let the truth out for a number of reasons, largest being it would broadcast how vulnerable this infrastructure is, which would cause all kinds of political and economic damage.

[u/Hinermad → u/You_meddling_kids]

Agreed. It's like how large firms don't often prosecute embezzlers. When they catch someone doing it they offer to let them resign with a good letter of recommendation as long as they pay back the money. Making a public spectacle over it reveals to their customers how inept the firm is.

[u/Wooden_Imagination55 → u/kafktastic]

Believe it or not this incompetence would be replaced by more tomorrow and forgot next week by most.

A cyber attack on our flight systems would have major affects on travel and safety causing a panic and a lot of money lost.

[u/soilentgleem → u/kafktastic]

I am not saying that a cyber attack is what happened, but the motivation to cover up something like that could possibly be that they gutted cybersecurity with DOGE. There are other reasons that one would want to cover up such a thing as well, like the implications of whoever did it or something more.

[u/dcoats69 → u/kafktastic]

I think they would love a "see this iran war is justified you have just been underfunding it'

[u/BasvanS → u/You_meddling_kids]

I would put money on “Implement the most ridiculous AI solution for air traffic control you can of, and do it fast! Now stop bothering me with stupid question because I’m going for lunch and won’t come back sober, wink wink” being too close to reality

[u/austinwiltshire → u/BasvanS]

Brave of you to assume they were sober before lunch.

[u/EmptyHandle6593 → u/You_meddling_kids]

I wouldn't put it past them pulling the plug themselves so they can extort 50 billion from the taxpayers and blaming it on a contractor.

[u/Simple_Jack_16 → u/You_meddling_kids]

Leadership sets the tone and attitude. Get it done now, cut red tape (ie cut corners), move fast and break things. Well, they broke something and leadership is inescapably responsible.

[u/Fauxreigner_ → u/You_meddling_kids]

I feel like if it was a cyber attack, the responsible party would have waited another ten days.

[u/effyouspez → u/chaekinman]

Read only Fridays violated :(

[u/PirateSanta_1 → u/Akimbo_Zap_Guns]

My only question for it being a cyber attack is why now. If you want to cause chaos we are 2 weeks away from the busiest travel time of the year. The chaos of shutting down airlines right around thanksgiving would be massive.

[u/relax_live_longer → u/PirateSanta_1]

Practice run. 

[u/psychobabbler123 → u/PirateSanta_1]

To show you can. To actually harm the US might be construed as an attack worthy of retaliation. But simply showing your power in a few hour disruption might perk up the ears of the Orange Idiot.

[u/LurkerByNatureGT → u/PirateSanta_1]

It is demonstrably more vulnerable than EU air traffic control systems but had an international effect. 

Dublin has a lot of flights in and out of the US and is currently hosting the European Political Community summit as part of the EU presidency. Zelenskyy is one of the 50 leaders attending. 

A spate of bomb threats to Irish and other European  airlines has been happening all week, as well as bomb threats to media and schools, and a viable bomb found and disarmed near one of the summit event locations. I believe Russia has been identified as the actor behind the series of bomb threats. 

[u/rye_212 → u/PirateSanta_1]

Maybe it was a test run to learn how much disruption that particular targetted system could cause on a big-traffic day. But if it was, then Id expect the vulnerability can be patched to prevent a repeat in the coming weeks.

[u/Rent-a-guru → u/PirateSanta_1]

The negotiations with Russia and Ukraine are underway now. This could be Russia applying pressure to try and kept their assets in the US government in line.

[u/Parking_Watch3157 → u/Rent-a-guru]

I think the US did just propose "just give up the Donbas" again with a nice rug-pullable offer to let them into NATO. So yes, this is possible.

[u/Imsorrywhatnoway → u/Akimbo_Zap_Guns]

They are now saying it was a copper related incident due to some maintenance?! What does that even mean? I swear this is bonkers.

[u/QbertsRube → u/Imsorrywhatnoway]

They invited Kid Rock to DC and afterwards all the copper was missing.

[u/skarekroh → u/QbertsRube]

Everyone check your catalytic converters

[u/WeenyDancer → u/QbertsRube]

White house is up on cinder blocks

[u/welcome_to_urf → u/Imsorrywhatnoway]

That would be tied to the national TDM to IP transition underway, in which dated TDM tech copper lines are being swapped with more traditional IP transmission, like ethernets/fiber. Theyre trying to blame the outage on the TDM to IP transition which has been underway for years now without these issues. Also the entire national infrastructure isnt updated in a single event, and basically all delivery paths have backups to fail over to during a transition. A delivery path is taken down, the router is swapped, the new cables previously run are connected, and throughput is verified by both telco and the end user. Maintenance is performed all the time on these lines without causing NAS wide outages, maybe just a compartmentalized 3 minute blip while the routers restart. Something else to keep in mind, delivery points almost always have 2+ routers, so while maintenance is being performed on one side, the delivery along that primary path is very likely not impacted at all. Also also, typically the routers utilize different transmission mechanisms to ensure adequate redundancy- so 1 side would be terrestrial, and the other might be wireless.

[u/plumbbbob → u/welcome_to_urf]

DOGE probably saw a reference to "path diversity", decided it was woke, and ordered it removed

[u/DrBigsKimble → u/Imsorrywhatnoway]

ATC here at a small facility in the middle of nowhere.

Our radar and phone lines are currently being swapped from old copper wire to new fiber wires. There have been many issues related to this swap. We lost some of our long range radar feeds for a couple weeks. We lost both instant call and dial phone lines to other facilities and had to resort to using old backup landlines. So their explanation comes from something that is occurring or has occurred, it is not just straight out of the ether.

That being said, my opinion is that it is unlikely that the wire swap could have been the sole cause of what happened yesterday that led to them calling for the ground stop. Even at our tiny facility we still had backup radar feeds and resources to keep things moving. Large facilities have even more backup systems than we do.

This is just my opinion based on some experience with these issues and some anecdotal evidence. I don’t work in Tech Ops and cannot speak on the issue in any official capacity.

[u/Imsorrywhatnoway → u/DrBigsKimble]

Either way, it was reckless to do at this time without better backups. It's got to be stressful for all of your stuck working in this chaotic situation.

[u/DrBigsKimble → u/Imsorrywhatnoway]

Undoubtedly. I can tell you that we’ve had contractors in the past that have flat out refused to do work on systems on the midnight shift and we’ve had to figure out ways to accommodate their bullshit because in rural areas we have less choices for approved people to even do the work.

At these big facilities it is completely inexcusable.

[u/G_Morgan → u/Imsorrywhatnoway]

Ea-nāṣir and his shitty copper strikes again.

[u/civil_politics → u/Akimbo_Zap_Guns]

I’ve spent the majority of my career in cyber security - it is highly unlikely that a successful cyber attack would be addressed and remediated with the confidence to bring everything back online only a few hours later. I’ve worked at some operations that I would consider far more sophisticated than the average government (non DoD) operation and when there is a confirmed incident it is generally a minimum 10 hour deep dive to ensure there is no longer a foothold in the operation. The second an adversary gains a foothold in an environment the first thing they do is establish other retry mechanisms to ensure that even if they are kicked out they can renter nearly immediately

[u/nodtomod → u/civil_politics]

Yeah this I think is the better argument against it being a cyber attack. It probably couldn't be resolved this 'quickly'.

[u/daybreaker → u/civil_politics]

Ok but do you really think THIS admin wouldn’t hurriedly rush things back online without being confident it was safe?

[u/civil_politics → u/daybreaker]

A successful adversary, which if we are assuming nation state they would be, there are limits to how fast you could even rush.

The timeline just doesn’t match what my experience tells me would be the case if it were an attack on the infrastructure - that doesn’t mean it wasn’t, but it’s not what I’d put my money on.

[u/5AlarmFirefly → u/Akimbo_Zap_Guns]

I'm guessing it was intentional to try to squeeze Congress for more money before Dems take over. On Wednesday (i.e. two days before the outage) Duffy announced a 'media blitz' to try to get $30B for ATC upgrades: 

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/11/11/congress/duffy-white-house-30b-atc-01161474

[u/nevans89 → u/Akimbo_Zap_Guns]

Any credence to the "ai installed Friday, shit goes south saturday" theory?

[u/Catshit-Dogfart → u/Akimbo_Zap_Guns]

Giving him the widest possible benefit of doubt - the secretary of transportation sounded like somebody talking about something classified in a careful way that doesn't say anything classified.

I'm a system admin for a government agency and sometimes we get in a vulnerability (a CVE) that's classified. The classified part is the specifics of exactly how the vulnerability can be exploited, and most of the time it doesn't even matter for my purposes. Not the fact that the vulnerability exists, not the actions needed to patch it, nothing other than information that isn't even interesting unless you're trying to do something bad. And after it's all patched, it's immediately declassified.

And when I heard Sean Duffy talk, I think he's either completely full of shit or dancing around saying something he shouldn't.

[u/W0nderingMe → u/Catshit-Dogfart]

dancing around saying something he shouldn't

Which you're also not supposed to do.

[u/daybreaker → u/Akimbo_Zap_Guns]

Cyber attack feels likely. Yesterday Markwayne accidentally mentioned systems were overloaded by thousands of requests before duffy elbowed him and then he’s been sidelined all day today.

DOGE also fired most of the people in the department that guards against these things

[u/zzztoken → u/Akimbo_Zap_Guns]

I think if it was a cyberattack, whoever did it would certainly want the American people to know what they’re capable of. Especially an Iranian threat actor, they are very well known for ensuring you know it was them.

[u/mok000 → u/zzztoken]

Nah, they were messing around with AI and it went bad, now they are trying to hide their failure and blaming it on old equipment.

[u/Kazooguru → u/mok000]

Agreed. This administration is so completely incompetent that they should not be touching anything. The $50 billion of taxpayers money would be for kickbacks. We would have to fork over another $100 billion to clean up Trump’s mess. They toss billions around like it’s nothing while Americans are really worried about heating their homes this winter. I AM ENRAGED.

[u/the_snowmancometh → u/Akimbo_Zap_Guns]

It's either a foreign cyber attack or an intentional self-sabotage to distract people from headlines that could pop the AI bubble. An attack on working class Americans either way.

[u/MrStickDick → u/Akimbo_Zap_Guns]

50 billion sounds pretty specific... Like ransom-ware specific. Just a guess tho

[u/JesterMarcus → u/MrStickDick]

Well no, the ransom was just for $100 million. The rest is siphoned off by Trump and his people.

[u/mosen66 → u/Akimbo_Zap_Guns]

My wife and I think it may have been Iran or a proxy. They did threaten the US with severe repercussions.. We also are seeing activity against food supply (Freezer hacks), business/corporations (MS Cloud outage), Water utilities, ISP outages, train wrecks, Etc. Computers run damn near everything now and can be leveraged in many ways.

[u/Goodgoditsgrowing → u/mosen66]

If it were anyone like that they’d be taking credit, at least by rumor if not publicly. They’re not. Pretty sure this was our most relentless enemy - incompetence

[u/FapNowPayLater → u/Goodgoditsgrowing]

Not in all asymmetrical operations. Leaving it unclaimed makes a lying admin lie more, compounding chaos and uncertainty (the name of the game)

[u/vrxz → u/mosen66]

Doubt it was anyone other than ourselves. If anyone in the admin had proof it was Iran or proxy (or absence of proof of a clear cause) they would 100% be blaming Iran and drumming up political support for the war as fast as possible.

The only reason they have come out today specifying the "contractor replacing copper wire" story is plenty of people actually know it happened and would leak it if they didn't get in front of it. If the cause was unknown, they would be pushing the cyberattack possibility as the main narrative.

[u/Singularum → u/mosen66]

Don’t forget oil tankers https://cybernews.com/news/iran-oil-tanker-cyberattack-fbi-texas/

[u/DancingNiche]

60 out of 60 controllers saying Duffy lied to our faces at the White House is insane. Not 50/50. Not mixed. ZERO believe him. How do you even keep your job after that?

[u/skarekroh → u/DancingNiche]

His job has nothing to do with transportation. His job is to praise Trump, loudly, publicly, and often.

[u/cereal7802 → u/DancingNiche]

Most of the people in the networking and sysadmin fields don't trust the story either. it simply doesn't make sense. The press conference had a man who clearly only knows how to access whatever website is the default page on his phone, trying to explain a massive outage as if it was magic voodoo nobody could explain, and the best he could say was "we don't know, but it won't happen again"...Da Fuq?

[u/Luvik → u/DancingNiche]

Is 60/60 really that different from 50/50? /s

(Edit because some don’t get it: above poster’s “50/50” means 50% said yes 50% said no. My joke is changing “60 out of 60” into “60/60” and putting it next to the above poster’s 50/50, which isn’t that far off. But that’s not what they meant. Also, my “/s” is short for sarcastic.)

[u/WaikaTahiti → u/Luvik]

I did have to reread his comment twice to get his point.

[u/atgrey24 → u/Luvik]

Don't worry, I got what you were going for

[u/noage → u/Luvik]

Yes. No one believe stats unless the numbers are a little weird.

[u/Fallouttgrrl → u/noage]

934 out of 938 people asked agreed with this 

[u/Justsomejerkonline → u/DancingNiche]

Looks like Dems have another Congressional hearing to line up come January.

[u/mshaefer]

The entanglement between Duffy and the companies that stand to benefit from the $50B (were it ever to be appropriated) is atrocious.

Peraton won the prime integrator contract in December 2025 over a joint bid from Parsons and IBM. The AP described it at the time as a company with little experience working with the FAA. The company's own fee is up to $1.5 billion, but it directs the larger $12.5 billion pot to subcontractors. No full public list of those subcontractors exists yet.

ASI won its contract in June 2026, beating Palantir and Thales. Before the award, its Flyways software was already routing flights for Alaska, Delta, and United.

In 2026 Duffy and his family starred in The Great American Road Trip, a reality-style travel series. A 501(c)(4) nonprofit run by Tori Barnes, a former lobbyist for the U.S. Travel Association, paid most of the costs. Politico reported that the nonprofit pitched corporate sponsorships at $100,000 to $1 million, with perks including VIP access and networking. Companies DOT regulates, including United, Boeing, and Toyota, were among the sponsors.

Politico also found that one of the nonprofit's directors was Mark Bednar, a former spokesperson for Duffy in Congress. Senate lobbying records show Bednar lobbied for Peraton in 2025 and 2026, including the year Peraton won the air traffic control contract. When Peraton announced the award, it thanked Duffy by name. One critic told Politico that former Duffy staffers being involved with the group funding the show, including a lobbyist for a DOT contractor, raised an ethical concern.
What the reporting does not show: that Peraton itself sponsored the show, or that Bednar had any role in how the contract was awarded.

In August 2026, eight months after the award, Politico reported that FAA officials were frustrated with Peraton and were weighing whether to cut back its role. Three people familiar with the discussions spoke to the outlet. "Peraton has basically not done any work since they got in," one said. An industry official said the company had failed to manage subcontractors at one work site and let schedules slip on a project in Alaska. Another account described a Peraton manager eating doughnuts in a corner instead of overseeing the subcontractors.

So yeah, when Duffy keeps basically threatening that this will keep happening of he doesn’t get $50B, that’s what it’s going towards. Disgusting.

[u/ColdSignificances]

The problem is, this Trump administration has lied about so many things, no one believes a word any representative says.

[u/wezworldwide → u/ColdSignificances]

Not true, my uncle thinks this is the best-run government in his lifetime. Trump is a good deal maker, Iran needed to be bombed, and next week after the Fox News cycle, Trump will be fixing the broken air traffic system.

[u/The_B_Wolf → u/wezworldwide]

So...he's a rich, racist, misogynistic old white guy. Got it!

[u/PossessedToSkate → u/The_B_Wolf]

That's not fair. There is an excellent chance he's not rich.

[u/HobbesMich → u/PossessedToSkate]

Didn't buy enough stocks like Trump is the reason why if he's not.

[u/The_B_Wolf → u/PossessedToSkate]

Clarification: Trump is rich. Part of the reason why this guy likes him.

[u/New_Ad3443 → u/PossessedToSkate]

Most of the diehard MAGA movement is made up of poor, old white men who are deeply racist and sexist. 

[u/mississippimadness → u/The_B_Wolf]

Nah these dudes are usually below the poverty line

[u/StretchFrenchTerry → u/wezworldwide]

Please kick your uncle in the nuts for me.

[u/TacosAreJustice → u/ColdSignificances]

It’s the logical conclusion of convincing people the government is full of liars and thieves… it becomes true.

Trump is the logical conclusion of everything the Republican Party has advocated for since Nixon.

Quiet competence has been replaced by loud incompetence

[u/BeastInDarkness → u/ColdSignificances]

I'd say it's more that they lie about so many things you have to be a complete and total idiot to believe a word any of them say. Because quite frankly the odds that anything they say is the truth is so infinitesimally small you have a better chance picking the winning lottery numbers then you would guessing the rare time they tell the truth.

[u/Maskatron → u/ColdSignificances]

I didn’t think it was a cyber attack until they said it wasn’t.

[u/mPeachy]

Congress already furnished $12 billion of a requested $30 billion by the Trump administration. Sean Duffy has held off using over 90% of that money. Republicans have no cover, it’s just incompetence.

[u/New_Strike_4715 → u/mPeachy]

They have plenty of cover, billionaires own the media everyone watches.

[u/mPeachy → u/New_Strike_4715]

It’s kind of funny to watch them. Yesterday, when they didn’t know what it was, they’d jump up and down how great Donald Trump was in leading this. Then they find out it’s their contractor who made a mistake, and they jump up and down how it’s Congress’ fault for not funding the multi-year fix. Except the Transportation Secretary is sitting on $11 billion in money they haven’t spent, and Congress has been asking why they haven’t spent it, since they authorized it. It’s almost as if, when any aspect of the Trump administration is looked at, if you expect to see corruption and incompetence, you won’t be surprised, ever.

[u/StretchFrenchTerry → u/mPeachy]

It's not incompetence, the grift is going exactly as planned.

[u/CobblerMoney9605]

I'd like to offer an explanation:

Everyone remember DOGE?

In addition to firing ATCs, they also "laid off" 400 FAA engineers. Those engineers were tasked with maintaining the computer network.

Coincidence?

I think not. 

[u/Cardchucker → u/CobblerMoney9605]

I seem to recall Musk saying something about unreliable communication systems and how he wanted to use Starlink and his engineers to overhaul the system. 7 months after his team accessed the system and fired the people maintaining it, it suddenly collapses requiring 50 billion dollars to fix.

[u/Beneficial-Sound-199 → u/Cardchucker]

Oh the $50 billion government contract will certainly go to to him.

[u/nonamenolastname]

The system upgrade excuse - someone should have asked what kind of weapons grade idiot does upgrades during peak hours.

[u/Lilacsoftlips → u/nonamenolastname]

For real. Shit like this gets you fired at a real company 

[u/capibara_dono → u/Lilacsoftlips]

Exactly, I worked at a bank and upgrades were at 3 AM on the day with lowest load at that time.

[u/LemonAction4030]

How many decades will it take to undo the damage caused by this administration's unique combination of corruption, evil, and incompetence?

[u/Excellent_Ant_7154 → u/LemonAction4030]

The damage to the national debt alone is probably going to take 100 years to fix once we decide to start working on it.

[u/LemonAction4030 → u/Excellent_Ant_7154]

Great point. There's just too much to think about all at once. I was listening to a podcast the other day and the commenter mentioned something from 150 scandals ago and I was just like "oh yeah." It feels like we are finding out first hand how sedimentary rock is made.

[u/Scruffy11111 → u/LemonAction4030]

I'm still mind blown that the whole "John McCain isn't a war hero. Real heroes don't get captured." stuff in 2015 didn't end his political career right then and there.

[u/AJediWookie123 → u/Excellent_Ant_7154]

We have literally become the Lanisters from GOT. We have unlimited spending and China is funding us. Just like the Iron Bank. Fuck our politicians.

[u/ianrl337]

Yep, and why was DHS even commenting on it?

[u/flangler → u/ianrl337]

Because airplanes have bathrooms and toilets, too. Duh.

[u/BelowDeck → u/ianrl337]

Regardless of the truth, "was this is an attack?" is a major concern, so it does make sense that DHS would be there.

[u/Anonna-Moose]

My money is on a self-imposed 'Denial of Service' scenario. My bet is that the new AI overloaded the radar and communications arrays with requests.

If it were cyberattack they would use it to their advantage for funding... a rally cry.

If it were a contractor fuck up, it would be more localized and probably not at 3pm on a Friday (extremely busy, off limits for change window). They also would throw that contractor to the wolves to save their asses.

But... if the new AI system saw the peak traffic and decided to 'optimize' flight routing the way they claim it will, it may easily have have simultaneously accessed radar and communications systems to the point of saturation.

I'll go further and say that as AI agents started experiencing time-outs on radar requests for example, they probably started retrying incessantly further exacerbating the problem.

In my mind it's the most likley scenario where load and stress testing was inadequate and because its self-inflicted and related to AI, they will not be forthcoming. Notice how they hard avoid negative AI publicity.

Also notice how quickly they did a NATION WIDE ground stop. This was something worthy of full on panick, and again a cyber attack would be useful to rally support... so I think the call came from inside the house.

This administration is pushing AI on the American public way more than makes sense. This is a very good example of the dangers that can result, especially when wealth is prioritized over just about everything else.

[u/Extreme_Original_439 → u/Anonna-Moose]

You’d ideally throttle the tier 2 use case to ensure the tier 1 use case is never impacted though? Tier 2 use case being this new experimental AI planning.

Just 4 common levers I’ve seen to prevent this:

1. A set TPS rate from the new tier 2 client that may not be exceeded
2. Any service degradation in any scenario throttles all calls from tier 2 clients

3. A lever in the tier 2 service itself to prevent browning out the service

4. An alternative approach to the design where this can’t happen, such as best effort duplication of data to a service that serves t2 use cases

This is just bare minimum operational readiness stuff Ive seen, and I don’t work with anything that could risk people’s lives.

[u/Fadedcamo → u/Extreme_Original_439]

There's literally an article posted the day before the attack commenting about how they weren't doing this basic level of debugging before the full rollout of AI and it it could be dangerous.

[u/capibara_dono → u/Anonna-Moose]

I agree with you.

I've seen competent companies fuck up and overload their systems, but there's usually a rollback that can restore the system to a previous state.

[u/spunlines → u/Anonna-Moose]

thanks for spelling this out. if there was any truth to his explanation (and reason for the defensiveness in it), i'd believe the old switches got overloaded. but that happening at all screams "did no one load test the new shit" to me.

they're probably faced with having to roll back their fancy new (read: untested) software and it's easier to scream "give me money" and blame it on congress than accept the fuck-up themselves.

[u/New_Ad3443 → u/Anonna-Moose]

The Trump family has billions poured into the AI company's. 

[u/DreamDiver- → u/Anonna-Moose]

They installed a new ai system across the entire nation all at once? Thats what im curious about.

[u/Pizpot_Gargravaar → u/DreamDiver-]

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/11/faa-expands-ai-advice-to-manage-air-traffic-congestion-across-entire-us-airspace/

“After a successful initial rollout to the National Capital Region in September, the FAA will now use SMART in the airspace of all 22 centers across the country to reduce delays, reduce fuel consumption and improve the travel experience for the flying public,” according to the agency statement posted on November 10.

They ran a pilot test of the system in DC for about a month beforehand. It sounds like more testing and a slower rollout might have been advisable.

[u/grandmawaffles]

The follow up that should have been asked to him directly during the press conference is what was causing the high continuous data to be passed through the network that was far more substantial than what is normally passed through. No one asked that question. He basically said they DDOS’d themselves. Why was the data volume exponentially higher?

[u/Wonderful-Foot8732 → u/grandmawaffles]

I would assume these are already very capable networks. Redundant and dedicated to the critical operations. The official explanation makes no sense at all.

[u/Wonderful-Foot8732 → u/Wonderful-Foot8732]

TIL: The network was also migrated from TDM to IP. Getting the same level of determinism with IP takes some serious engineering competence. Apparently, so does fault containment. When a problem at a remote location can disrupt air traffic communications across much of the US, something has gone spectacularly wrong. Quite an achievement for a safety-critical network.

[u/MeadowSoprano → u/grandmawaffles]

I was yelling at the tv, “Ok but WHY NOW? What changed???”

Duffy fucked it up, so naturally it’s congress’ fault.

[u/HedonisticFrog]

I wouldn't be surprised if they're trying to blame hardware being overloaded even if it was AI overloading said hardware. That's being generous though, this administration just outright lies constantly with no regard for the truth.

[u/Then_I_had_a_thought → u/HedonisticFrog]

For context, I’m a scientist, a practicing experimental physicist. Everybody thought we were overreacting when we said the Trump administration was purging all of the scientists from positions within the administration. The weather people, all of the health care people, etc. The people on the far right laughed it off.

They think we are somehow brainwashed because we went to college and have PhDs in extremely specific topics. But the thing is, we’re not brainwashed. We have devoted our entire lives to hyper-specific things that matter.

So we had Elon Musk and doge come in and gut all sorts of government entities. Most of this was a data grab and retribution from Musk because people in the government were looking into his family’s practices because they were unscrupulous to put it mildly. And now we are seeing the results of that. Not having climatologists looking at weather, not having experienced people in FDA making sure our drugs and our food are safe, or experienced people looking into air traffic control.

We are reaping the whirlwind of the Trump administration and I cannot wait until it is over.

[u/WhyMustIMakeANewAcco → u/HedonisticFrog]

I wouldn't be surprised if the hardware was, technically, overloaded. Because they ran a bad update. Which they did because incompetent... or even on purpose because now they are trying to extort more money out of congress.

[u/Gloomy-Insurance-739]

You can't trust a word anyone in this administration says. I believe our rivals and people we are war with than my own government.

[u/dryheat122]

Duffy has degrees in marketing and law, and is a former TV commentator. He knows zero about aviation or computer systems. This is the shit that happens when you have unqualified people in charge.

I certainly don't trust him to lead a complete overhaul of the ATC system and don't want Congress to give him $30B for that purpose.

[u/TheEndoftheRoads]

None of us ever have to worry about imposter syndrome ever again. With the end of DEI, we have the dumbest mf-ing white guys on earth running cabinet level agencies.

[u/sexeveg314]

Hence MAGA Mike saying there does not need to be any hearings about the stoppage.

[u/englando08]

This was done purposefully in order to get more money for whatever system they are requesting. The question is that the republican control congress, so why are they blaming congress for nit getting funding?

[u/Jack-Castle-]

I hope the Dems go fucking HAM on these clowns as soon as they're sworn in. This isn't a "revenge" tour, it's justice and common sense

[u/Time-Cell8272]

Anybody else remember when people used to resign after they fucked up?

[u/Notsoflashy → u/Time-Cell8272]

If Duffy resigns, who would replace him? Trump has already scraped the bottom of the barrel with his picks; how much bottomer can he get!

[u/Nthepeanutgallery]

Buried lede:

Duffy emphatically denied that the FAA’s recent nationwide rollout of an $875 million artificial intelligence system called Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes, and Trajectories (SMART) had anything to do with Friday’s disruption, claiming that the system “is not even plugged in.”

The FAA said earlier this week that it “will now use SMART in the airspace of all 22 [air traffic control] centers across the country to reduce delays, reduce fuel consumption, and improve the travel experience for the flying public.”

"Not even plugged in", but "will now [be] used".

This next two years is going to be fucking Squid Games.

[u/Canarstead]

The reflecting pool mess is really a reflection of Trump's administration. Rotten to the core.

[u/mikemaca]

I like how they keep saying "It's definitely NOT the AI system we deployed earlier in the day."

[u/MasterOfBunnies]

I'm very worried about what's going to suddenly happen to software infrastructure, when this administration is kicked out. I won't be surprised if all this shit has a kill switch.

[u/Fauxreigner_ → u/MasterOfBunnies]

I think backdoors are more likely.

[u/MasterOfBunnies → u/Fauxreigner_]

That's definitely another possibility. But a back door will only be open until we get our people in to close it up. A kill switch would cripple us hard.

[u/Pure-Science-7774 → u/MasterOfBunnies]

They will absolutely collapse this entire country out of spite. But it’s a good opportunity for us to look at history and build a better future. We must rid America of stupidity once and for all 

[u/Pure-Science-7774]

Putin must think Americans are soooo dumb. My four year old wasn’t buying Duffy’s story. 

[u/mangotime58]

Late to this but it’s hard to believe an administration that lies all the time. I figure it was either a cyber attack or a setup by the administration so they could get could that 50 billion approved.

[u/Cosmoby24]

Well, he IS a Trump appointee so lying is a feature not a bug

[u/throwawaylol666666]

Cyber attack or intentional inside job. One or the other.

[u/No-Hurry-2523]

I wouldn't put Duffy in charge of picking up Piss Jugs along the interstate.

[u/HypergolicHyperbola]

So, secretary Duffy, what you are saying is that for less than the cost of Trumps vanity war on Iran, we could have had an updated ATC system? Is that correct?

[u/Caymonki]

This is project 2025, privatization of the FAA.

This is the Heritage Foundation’s goal, along with all of the US government.

[u/stsOddMonkey]

Am I the only one who think trump order it to punish us for him being a big fat loser?

[u/Late_Song_4097 → u/stsOddMonkey]

No, they're trying to force the lame duck congress into giving 50 BILLION more that they can siphon off to their friends under "contracts." It's pretty obvious based on Duffy repeatedly screaming about money

[u/DocJenkins → u/Late_Song_4097]

They can have that $50 billion, after they get dragged in front of a House Oversight committee under oath. 

[u/stsOddMonkey → u/Late_Song_4097]

Classic con. Make up a problem and sale the solution.

[u/Popular-Web-3739 → u/stsOddMonkey]

No. I just think they're incompetent. Apparently, they tested this new system on just 180 flights at Reagan National over about 7 weeks before deciding to implement it nationwide. Just like so many other things Trump's crew has done, they rushed this out without proper planning.

[u/Dendady2112 → u/Popular-Web-3739]

They were explicitly told this would happen.

[u/dolfox → u/stsOddMonkey]

Stephen Miller directed chaos. trump’s a puppet now

[u/Leather_Force_9419 → u/dolfox]

Always was

[u/FloridaGirlNikki → u/stsOddMonkey]

I think it's no accident that this debacle happened riiiight after going to congress to ask for money.

[u/eskimospy212]

I mean his transit experience is riding around on a bus for MTV.

Total shocker that he’s bad at his job. 

[u/KennyLog1n]

Duffy emphatically denied that the FAA’s recent nationwide rollout of an $875 million artificial intelligence system called Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes, and Trajectories (SMART) had anything to do with Friday’s disruption, claiming that the system “is not even plugged in.”

The FAA said earlier this week that it “will now use SMART in the airspace of all 22 [air traffic control] centers across the country to reduce delays, reduce fuel consumption, and improve the travel experience for the flying public.**”

Holy shit, did they just shut down Air Traffic Control for no reason, blame a contractor, all so they could justify putting their AI system "SMART" in control that the FAA has previously not been able to approve for use, request $50 billion in funding for it? And we all know that $50 billion would def get funneled to companies in the Meta/Google/SpaceX/Nvidia group via their own contractors and middlemen/brokers (to justify overspending by the Government...gotta pay those brokers).

[u/Solonohioperson]

Where is trump? You would think he would love to appear in public for the attention and to blame Biden (his favorite pasttime besides raping children) . Is he incapacitated? Anyways the entire junk drawer is a bunch of incompetent liars and Duffy deserves all the pressure in the world until he cries and resigns.

[u/Waymannj → u/Solonohioperson]

Iran did this and Trump is hamstrung now that he said the war was "over".

[u/masstransience]

Not without 50 billion!!!

/s

[u/KeepCalmCarryOnKY]

Cyber attack by Russia or Iran that Trump is unwilling to admit.

[u/jempyre → u/KeepCalmCarryOnKY]

Much more likely a rushed and failed ai implementation

[u/Zealousideal_Look275 → u/jempyre]

Given the clowns, doing a DDoS attack on themselves would track 

[u/jempyre → u/Zealousideal_Look275]

Yeah, I suspect the agents they deployed were clogging the network passing context around in a contextual language (English) versus the non-contextual (and thus concisely encoded) protocol

[u/DocCEN007]

I find it hard to believe that someone who was on The Real World and Road Rules would lie. Nice try liberals! Now hand over $50B to fix what he screwed up! It'll be the best $100B ever spent on air safety and generational Duffy wealth! /s

[u/Mr_Pigg]

Love it or hate it, this is what Peak Republican leadership looks like!

[u/ther_dog]

The ground stop was a payback for the midterms. Americans will suffer and they will also pay (50 billion tax dollars) so that tech bros can supposedly replace copper wiring and outdated routers.
The manufactured crisis is actually a good way to get people to heel and pay for something that obviously benefits them. It’ll be deemed a win-win deal but where a very small group can line their pockets.

[u/All_Lurker2 → u/ther_dog]

Nah. Just wild incompetence (because they’re grifters)

[u/bumpy_disposition]

Donald Jennifer trump has to be the end of the republican party.

His incompetence, his corruption, his lies and they're complicity make it obvious that they can never be trusted again.

Conservatives bring nothing to the table. Republicans do nothing but take and destroy, and offer nothing of substance to the fabric of society.

There is nothing that conservatives do, that can't be done without a conservative influence in the United States of America.

[u/April_Mist_2 → u/bumpy_disposition]

It's very frustrating, as a woman, to have to see "Jennifer" as an intended insult to Trump.

As a manager, I've attended countless meetings where I was the only woman at the table. Men will walk in and say, "Good morning, gentlemen." No problem. It doesn't insult me to be addressed that way. I walked in and said, "Good morning, ladies." They fell out! "Ouch! That was low!"

"Really, why?"

Uncomfortable silence. Because really, it's 2026. Women are smart, capable, and generally don't act anything like Trump. They showed up in greater numbers than men to vote blue. So can we please find a different way to insult Trump, and men in general, than calling them women?

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

[u/MockDeath → u/April_Mist_2]

You are not wrong. Calling his middle name Jennifer is just what I would expect a child to do and it is insulting. There is nothing wrong with that name or people with it.

It is the same kind of juvenile name calling that trump does.

[u/thisusedyet → u/MockDeath]

If you want to go with juvenile name calling, Donald Jenius Trump is right there

[u/MockDeath → u/thisusedyet]

That at least matches how trump probably spells genius too.

[u/South_Butterfly_6542 → u/bumpy_disposition]

it HAS to be the end, but it's not. it's only the beginning. The ruling class hand select the leaders of this party.

[u/xious307090 → u/South_Butterfly_6542]

And people will get amnesia thinking their life was better under them, and vote accordingly. Cycle continues.

[u/Ok_Counter1939]

You mean the Trump administration isn’t 100% honest?  Who knew?

[u/Overall_Curve6725]

This was another stunt like the Trump ear assassination attempt only on a national level. This could have been catastrophic. They should all be in prison.

[u/heliumfix]

I'm getting the feeling these people aren't working for the citizenry.

[u/NoKids__3Money]

We are never getting an ounce of truth out of this administration unless it’s by accident

[u/HotPaper7674]

The only thing that Duffy and Mullen didn’t address as possibilities for the grounding was the AI-based SMART system they just rolled out. Their avoidance of the fact that this had already been nationally publicized and promoted by Sean Duffy as recently as November 9th, shows their hand.

[u/Shipit123]

But President Trump said that his administration is the most transparent in history! They wouldn’t lie to us would they?!?!

[u/Beneficial-Sound-199]

“We need 50 billion stat!”

No bid contract incoming

[u/latswipe]

that he was dull of shit and lying outright was my first, immediate impression.

my second impression is that this is Trump's remaining play: waste Congress' time and mandate on debating stupid shit like this.

The answer must always, always be NO.

[u/Constant_Proofreader]

Well of course he lied. What else have we come to expect from Trump Cabinet officials? And if you call him on it, he'll double down. It's so predictable.

[u/conniefrancis]

Put Duffy in chains make him break big rocks into small rocks with his bare hands.

[u/ItsSignalsJerry_]

Journalists should speak to IT staff.