Is America under attack? Friday the 13th terror grips US with flights grounded, boats crashing, tech meltdown and Trump cabinet officials hiding on military base. Experts sound the alarm with terrifying ‘mothership’ theory

By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR and CHRIS MELORE, US DEPUTY SCIENCE EDITOR

Published: 20:20 EST, 13 November 2026 | Updated: 20:49 EST, 13 November 2026

America is on edge after a rare nationwide grounding of flights, a global tech meltdown and two ship crashes left many wondering whether the run of disruptions is simply bad luck on Friday the 13th or something far more nefarious.

The incidents come with the US at war with Iran and senior Cabinet officials living on military bases under threat. President Trump, who has only closed-door meetings on his schedule through the weekend, has yet to address the ground stop publicly. Instead, he took to Truth Social to post about his plan to save Hollywood.

Officials insist there is no evidence that the disruptions are part of an attack or that they are connected. But Chris Swecker, who spent 24 years with the FBI, told the Daily Mail that the timing was highly suspicious against the backdrop of America’s intensifying conflict with Iran and the recent election. Iran, he said, ‘thinks we’re in a weakened state right now.’

While Swecker believes Iran-backed Hezbollah cells already in the country could launch terror attacks on US soil, he said an operation causing disruption on this scale would originate thousands of miles away.

‘They can’t do this… this can’t be done by a cell. I think if this were a hostile foreign intelligence operation, or a foreign act, it would be coming from the mothership,’ he said, referring to Iran itself.

Cybersecurity expert James Knight told the Daily Mail that a nation-state behind such an attack would conceal its role. ‘If this was a nation-state, they would not be taking responsibility for it,’ he said. He added that those targeted would be prevented from publicly acknowledging an attack, saying ‘it would never be allowed to be stated that this actually occurred.’

America is on edge after a rare nationwide grounding of flights, a global tech meltdown and two ship crashes left many wondering whether the run of disruptions is simply bad luck on Friday the 13th or something far more nefarious

Planes were dramatically grounded across the United States from Friday afternoon

The latest disruption brought departures across the country to a standstill after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced a rare nationwide ground stop at 3.45pm ET on Friday, citing extraordinary circumstances and safety concerns. The ground stop was lifted just after 8pm.

Travelers were left waiting at airport gates and aboard planes for updates on when they could leave, as authorities worked to establish what had gone wrong.

While preliminary reports suggested the outage was not caused by a cyberattack, FBI personnel across the country were monitoring the situation. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication of foul play, but stressed that authorities were keeping all possibilities open.

‘There was no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack against us,’ he said, but added, ‘we’re not ruling out anything at this point.’

With departures halted nationwide, Mullin also sought to reassure families with loved ones already in the air.

‘I want to make sure we say this again. There’s no reason for the public to be afraid or scared for your loved ones. This isn’t another 9/11. I just can’t repeat that enough,’ he said.

Swecker said he would take Mullin at his word for the time being, while continuing to consider possible hostile involvement through the lens of his investigative experience.

‘My background is gonna go in that direction, until I see otherwise,’ he said.

People were fearful that a cyber attack from an enemy was behind planes being grounded

His concern extended beyond the immediate cause of Friday’s outage to the possibility of further disruption as the conflict with Iran continued. He urged vigilance and said the country needed to prepare for a major cyberattack.

‘I think we have to be prepared for that. I think we have to be prepared for the big cyber action, cyber attack.’

Swecker also warned that a perception of American vulnerability could encourage Iran to escalate, including through missile attacks, and said the US needed to be ready for those possibilities.

The aviation shutdown came on the heels of another communications crisis, with governments, businesses and ordinary users worldwide already grappling with a Microsoft outage that began Thursday afternoon.

That failure cut access to Outlook and essential services used by banks and court systems, disrupting the digital tools that organizations and individuals rely on to communicate and conduct daily business.

Microsoft has maintained that the global failure was not caused by a cyberattack or security breach. Knight, however, said the nature and extent of the disruption bore the hallmarks of a potential ‘nation-state’ attack.

According to Knight, tens of thousands of Microsoft systems crashed when the underlying network failed. He said the disruption also affected automatic server checks and security systems protecting data, a combination he considered suspicious.

Thousands of passengers faced chaos on Friday evening by the unprecedented action

‘Even at ground zero, that should not have occurred,’ he said.

For Knight, the question was not simply why services had failed, but why the systems intended to monitor and protect them had also been affected.

He argued that the scale and pattern of the Microsoft outage and the breakdown at US airports warranted scrutiny, suggesting that a deliberate operation of that magnitude would require the capabilities of a nation-state such as Iran.

Knight said he was skeptical of an accidental systems failure as an explanation for both incidents, pointing to the protections and backup arrangements that large technology companies and aviation authorities use to keep essential services running.

‘This is strange. These systems generally have redundancies. Now, we know the government systems, they were old, whatever, but it wasn’t that bad, where the whole thing goes down, and this administration was putting a lot of work into modernizing the FAA and put a lot of these redundancies in place.’

‘[The FAA] they’ve got redundancies here. Again, this should not have gone down.’

Knight placed those concerns in the context of a wider, largely hidden confrontation between hostile nations’ hackers and American cyber units.

He said foreign hackers had maintained access to US computer systems for years, while American cyber units had infiltrated networks overseas.

Such access, he suggested, could provide a position from which to launch a disruptive operation.

But using that access to cause a conspicuous failure could also expose the foothold, sacrificing the ability to exploit it again.

Knight said: ‘It would look like this. This is a last resort because as soon as they launched this, they’ve given up the position, they can no longer use it, they’ve played the card.’

He warned that if the Microsoft meltdown were established to be sabotage, it could represent a dangerous escalation with the potential to lead to war.

A tanker tipped onto its side in the Mississippi River, triggering a major rescue operation

Knight emphasized that he was theorizing and that there was no indication of a cyberattack, but warned: ‘If it was, this would be bloody serious.’

The disruptions to aviation and digital communications unfolded alongside two major incidents on American waterways, where investigators were also working to determine what had gone wrong.

On Thursday, the same day the Microsoft outage began, a cargo ship struck the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge across the Delaware River between Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The collision left the 3,659-foot-long bridge unable to close, causing a major backup on the Philadelphia side, state Rep. Ed Neilson said in a news release.

A day later, a tanker struck a docked paddlewheel cruise vessel in New Orleans, sending the passenger boat onto its side in the Mississippi River and triggering a major rescue operation.

The American Heritage was carrying approximately 129 passengers, in addition to crew members, when it was struck by the Atlantic Asphalt tanker.

Coast Guard Capt. Melanie Burnham said the tanker appeared to suffer ‘some type of loss of steering’ before striking the cruise vessel. The cause remained under investigation.

The reported steering problem put the vessel’s control systems among the questions surrounding the collision. Maritime cybersecurity guidance identifies such systems as a potential point of vulnerability aboard modern ships.

The Coast Guard’s own guidance advises investigators to consider a cyber incident when a vessel’s systems or equipment fail without an obvious cause.

Airspace was opened up shortly after 8pm with a huge catch-up operation underway

Millions of passengers across the United States still faced lengthy delays before traveling

Industry guidelines also identify digital steering, propulsion and navigation systems as vulnerable to cyber incidents, with greater exposure when connected to other onboard systems or remote monitoring networks.

Wall Street, too, has been left reeling this week. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, the face of the AI boom, resigned on Thursday over extramarital affairs, including one with a woman suspected of being a Chinese government agent.

The scandal has helped wipe around $2 trillion off the chipmaker’s value since October, denting one of the biggest holdings in millions of Americans’ retirement savings.

For Swecker, preparedness remained essential even if an initial disruption proved accidental.

Asked whether an adversary could take advantage of an incident that was not deliberately caused, he said intelligence agencies needed to guard against that possibility.

Planes pictured at Newark Liberty airport near Manhattan on a day of drama and fear

‘I think we have to guard against that,’ he said. ‘If our intelligence agencies aren’t on that type of footing right now, they should be.’

He said he was ‘99 percent certain’ agencies were already on alert, adding: ‘We would be negligent. This country and our intelligence services would be negligent if they were not.’

His warning extended to the financial and communications infrastructure that supports everyday life, where an attack could cause disruption far beyond a single company, airport or vessel.

The former FBI official said the threat could take both digital and physical forms, with severe consequences if essential financial services were compromised or knocked offline.

‘We face a cyber threat, we face the physical threat. And if the financial system were to be compromised or shut down, it wouldn’t take a nuclear missile, it could be done via cyber means,’ Swecker explained.

‘Or they cut an underground cable that runs under the ocean. We’d be back in the Stone Age for a while.’