If a Source Agency confirms after Issuance and before Dec 1, 2026 that a specific identified malfunction, error, damage or other event caused the FAA's nationwide ground stop on Nov 13, then the market resolves to Yes. Sources from ABC, The Information, The Wall Street Journal, Semafor, CBS, NBC, The Washington Post, Axios, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Bloomberg News, the Associated Press, Reuters, Politico, and the New York Times.
This must be confirmed, verified, or established as factual by at least one Source Agency.
The ground stop is the nationwide departure ground stop the FAA ordered on Nov 13, 2026. A cause counts if a Source Agency reports it as a cause of the ground stop or of the radio, radar or other system outage behind it. More than one market can resolve to Yes.
System failure: a malfunction of hardware, software, power or telecommunications equipment used by the FAA or its contractors, including one set off by maintenance work or accidental damage. A cyberattack, jamming or sabotage is not a failure. Maintenance/upgrade: planned maintenance, an upgrade, a configuration change or a cutover on an FAA or contractor system Physical damage: accidental damage to a cable, line, antenna or other physical equipment, including by construction work or weather Software/config error: a fault in software, or a wrong setting or configuration, in an FAA or contractor system, including one introduced by an update or upgrade Contractor failure: the failure, damage, error or work behind the outage was in equipment, a network or a system run by a company other than the FAA, such as a telecommunications carrier or an FAA contractor SMART system: a malfunction or error in, or the deployment or rollout of, the FAA's SMART air traffic management system, including its interaction with other FAA systems Human error: a mistake by a person, such as an FAA employee, air traffic controller, technician or contractor, set off the outage, including a wrong command, setting, procedure or physical action. A deliberate act meant to disrupt equipment or operations does not count. AI system error: an AI system or AI agent (a machine-learning model, large language model or autonomous agent) itself produced the action, output or change that caused the outage, and the Source Agency describes that system as AI. It does not count if AI was only part of the affected system, used by staff or contractors, running at the time, or used to help write software that later failed. Specific cause confirmed: a Source Agency confirms what caused the telecommunications outage behind the ground stop by naming a particular malfunction, error, damage or other event. If no cause is confirmed before Dec 1, 2026, this market resolves to No. L3Harris: the failure, damage, error or work behind the outage was in equipment, a network or a system that L3Harris Technologies runs, manages or oversees for the FAA, whoever caused it Verizon: the failure, damage, error or work behind the outage was in equipment, a network or a system that Verizon runs, manages or oversees for the FAA, whoever caused it
The following do NOT count: A report that a cause is suspected, being investigated or has not been ruled out A statement that the ground stop followed a communication, radio or radar outage or issue, without saying what caused that outage A cause of a different outage or ground stop
This market is NOT mutually exclusive: more than one market can resolve to Yes. For example, a problem with the SMART rollout can also count for Maintenance/upgrade and, if it is a software or configuration fault, for Software/config error.
