Rendered at 05:14:11 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Cloudflare Workers.
Barbing 5 hours ago [-]
L3Harris has been modernizing the communications infrastructure supporting the National Airspace System in close coordination with the FAA. 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. We 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. L3Harris takes the nationwide ground stop and its impact on travelers, airlines and air traffic operations seriously.
<end entire statement>
droidjj 4 hours ago [-]
This went through so many rounds with their lawyers that I now feel I know less than before I read it.
otterley 2 hours ago [-]
Makes me wonder why they bothered.
stogot 31 minutes ago [-]
Ending so abrupt. No “apology”. The comms PR team mustve removed something better
intrasight 4 hours ago [-]
> “Which begs the question for us: What did L3Harris do? Did they make mistakes yesterday?” Duffy told reporters. “They own this network. They’re our prime contractor. I can’t go somewhere else. They own it. Or was it a faulty router? And we’re going to find that out. And frankly, we’re going to hold people accountable.”
Someone's gotta educate the asshole that the buck stops at him. He is responsible.
otterley 3 hours ago [-]
You think he’s personally responsible for a network equipment maintenance failure, for a project that was apparently already 70% complete and which likely started long before he took office? He’s the head of a government agency, not a network tech.
What exactly do you expect him to do? Put yourself in his shoes.
kakadu 2 hours ago [-]
> What exactly do you expect him to do?
Resign.
It happened on his watch.
otterley 2 hours ago [-]
Why? What good would that do other than make you feel better?
xnx 2 hours ago [-]
He handled it terribly. His top priorities were spreading blame and kissing the president's ass. God help us if there's a more serious problem with anything while these people are in charge.
Jtsummers 2 hours ago [-]
What good does it do for him to stay? He hasn't been doing his job, he's been filming a reality show instead. He doesn't deserve his paycheck.
If he leaves maybe Trump would hire a competent replacement instead (unlikely, but can't be much worse than the current Cabinet of Clowns).
otterley 2 hours ago [-]
That seems like a different reason for him to be fired. If he had a competent boss, I could see that happening, but not with Trump as president. Trump is all about reality TV. He probably wishes more of his cabinet and department heads made it.
Jtsummers 2 hours ago [-]
Why do you want him to stay? You seem to be awfully keen to defend a man who isn't doing his job and allowed a major ATC failure to occur on his watch. You're all over this thread defending a useless man.
otterley 2 hours ago [-]
I don’t care if he stays or goes. I care that others, particularly in a forum of engineers (who are supposedly more intelligent than most) are demanding his head for the wrong reasons.
It’s stupid to fire engineers for accidentally causing operational incidents, and it’s similarly stupid to fire their bosses unless they intentionally or negligently set the stage to increase the risk of serious incidents. Mistakes are the fertilizer that bears the fruit of wisdom and experience.
Meanwhile, people here think Jensen Huang should be allowed to return to the helm at Nvidia even though doing so would be about the stupidest act the board could take; doing so would put the entire company at even greater risk of criminal liability.
strathmeyer 1 hours ago [-]
[dead]
empath75 2 hours ago [-]
Well, he has been running the DoT for the last 2 years and spent the summer making a sponsored reality tv show.
Nearly every officer that Trump has appointed this term is unqualified. That doesn’t make them necessarily culpable for everything that happens in their portfolios, especially for projects underway before they took office.
joering2 4 hours ago [-]
he did 100% what this administration does daily: blamed someone else, reassure they will "get to the bottom of it", and that someone will pay the price (someone else). Meanwhile in few days/weeks/months there will be something else to terrorize American citizens with, and 99.9% of citizens will forget about what happened Friday the 13th. Only hope is that we're so close to January and new leadership, that hopefully they won't forget and launch proper investigations. But make no mistake - any other administration if one faulty router would cost $250 million dollars in halting the whole US airspace to stop, at least Sec. would immediately resign!
jimt1234 4 hours ago [-]
I feel sorry for the poor, underpaid network tech that's gonna take the blame for all this.
jmbwell 3 hours ago [-]
With any luck it will be recognized as an organizational failure and changes will be made to avoid it rather than punishing any one individual
riponretards 4 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
slowin 5 hours ago [-]
For those unfamiliar with this company:
> In 2008, 72 Iraqi civilians sued L3 Services for human rights violations they had endured at Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq, including "torture; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; war crimes; assault and battery; sexual assault and battery; intentional infliction of emotional distress; negligent hiring and supervision; and negligent infliction of emotional distress." A settlement was reached on October 10, 2012, which was the "first positive resolution to a U.S. civil case challenging detainee treatment outside the United States in the larger 'war on terror' context".
> In 2012, L3 subsidiary KDI Precision Products participated in the sale of 11,500 JDAM bomb fuzes to Israel, part of a $647 million contract deal. These were among the weapons used by the IDF in the 2014 Gaza War; the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights highlighted the IDF's weapons usages, which included attacks on densely populated civilian areas, as constituting potential war crimes.
> In June 2022, Chris Kubasik succeeded as the Chair following Bill Brown's retirement. That same month it was reported to have held talks to purchase the Israeli company NSO, which builds Pegasus spyware. White House officials heard of the talks and voiced opposition, resulting in L3Harris discontinuing its plans.
> In October 2025, Israel entered into a memorandum of understanding with L3Harris to facilitate the acquisition of new light attack aircraft intended for border defense, aimed at developing the Israeli Sky Warden variant.
L3Harris is the US military's electronics guy. They make everything electronic and complicated, from handheld radios to motorized camera pods to satellites.
skew-aberration 5 hours ago [-]
> purchase the Israeli company NSO, which builds Pegasus spyware. White House officials heard of the talks and voiced opposition
Is the implication that an American company would not be able to continue their business model legally? But they could just sell to the government instead, as L3Harris' other zero-day companies do.
MarsZebra 4 hours ago [-]
They are also behind Golden Dome -- putting offensive weapons into orbit
U.S. has been leading the way on weaponizing space. We recently refused to join a U.N. resolution prohibiting it.
Warmongering is just a tool the military industrial complex uses to feed itself taxpayer dollars. (Oh and SpaceX is an even bigger player than L3Harris for the record).
U.S. is squarely to blame for any arms race in space.
frrlpp 3 hours ago [-]
Has L3Harris anything to do with Harris Radio?
jki275 3 hours ago [-]
L3Harris is the merger of L3 and Harris. Yes, they still make radios.
encrypted_bird 2 hours ago [-]
They're definitely straining the imagination wrt creativity in coming up with that name.
class3shock 2 hours ago [-]
They are the 6th biggest defense contractor in the US but don't have the same name recognition as the 'big five' (Boeing, RTX, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin - listed in no specific order)
Funny story. Chris Kubasik was the heir apparent at Lockheed but got kicked to the curb when he couldn't keep his dick in his pants at work. Ended up getting the CEO job at L3Harris and then what does he do?
> don't have the same name recognition as the 'big five
Well, as they say, all publicity is good publicity?
aaron695 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
drewg123 6 hours ago [-]
Oh, these are defense contractors, that explains a lot about this non-statement.
I had thought the L3 was from Level 3 Communications and Harris, but its actually L3 Technologies which seems to be a holding company for defense contractors.
ba1afd89f34cb23 5 hours ago [-]
FYI, CenturyLink bought Level3 something like 10 years ago and then re-branded as Lumen during COVID.
jki275 3 hours ago [-]
L3 Technologies was a large defense contractor that was known for night vision and optics among a number of other things. They merged with Harris to create L3H. They're not a holding company.
class3shock 2 hours ago [-]
All the big defense companies look a bit like holding companies with a bunch of differently focused 'business units' under the same umbrella.
bastard_op 5 hours ago [-]
Ahh, these frigging guys...
So I bought a Fortigate firewall on ebay some years back for a lab device, I password recovered it to break in and recover it, and it came up registered to them, and still under Enterprise license support for like 6mo. Great, that's exactly what I wanted for a lab device! I looked them up to see they were a defense contractor, ok, so more money than brains. I'll take advantage...
That 6mo came and went, and they renewed the support on it for another year, and my firewall saw the entitlement. Even better, I continued to use it. After 4 years finally the device went EOL/EOS and expired with no more support available, I was sad.
Obviously these guys are fsckheads, more money and contracts from friends in high places than brains. This totally explains why the air system melted down!
InsidiousWombat 4 hours ago [-]
I think just the fact they used Fortigate means that
dvno42 4 hours ago [-]
What would you prefer to use? What else is there besides PaloAlto that's not even worse? Not saying Fortigates are great but they're the least shit I know of so please elaborate if you know of something better in the enterprise IT space.
Fordec 4 hours ago [-]
Pin alternatives on a dartboard, throw a dart to select one, and you're still better off.
Sophos is a bug riddled mess and UniFi is prosumer at best, in no world are they better than Fortigate
skullone 4 hours ago [-]
Yet somehow Fortigate is everywhere in defense/government. How they manage to make such buggy pathetic devices with near monthly CVEs is beyond me. Oh wait, they have no incentive to improve their quality, they're already everywhere :(
danso 6 hours ago [-]
> This website uses cookies and similar technologies, which we collectively refer to here as "cookies."[sic] L3Harris uses cookies to improve your experience on our website
Great first impression from a technical company
jmbwell 3 hours ago [-]
L3Harris is a legal-financial instrument formed from the remains of former technical companies
class3shock 2 hours ago [-]
Welcome to the world of defense contractors! Here at Raytheon Grumman Dynamic we have business units in all technical domains with engineers, scientists, and technicians of every kind, all organized under the leadership of finance and business majors to maximize shareholder value!
praet 6 hours ago [-]
> L3Harris takes the nationwide ground stop and its impact on travelers, airlines and air traffic operations seriously.
Thank goodness
noir_lord 5 hours ago [-]
I mean they could have taken it humorously I guess.
4 hours ago [-]
encrypted_bird 2 hours ago [-]
Lmao "Our lawyers advised us to be serious about this, but imma keep it a stack this is hilarious."
madeofpalk 6 hours ago [-]
I guess it’s technically a statement, even though it says nothing.
interestica 59 minutes ago [-]
It's a technical statement
shermozle 5 hours ago [-]
By "modernizing" they mean making it equivalently fragile and flaky to such modern wonders as Github and Microsoft 363?
icedchai 3 hours ago [-]
"Modernizing" is a favorite buzzword in government contracting. Moving some app to the cloud and doing nothing else to it? Modernizing. Rewriting the whole thing? Also modernizing. Putting a new API in front of an old system and then leaving the old system around for years? Also modernizing. Modernizing can mean everything and nothing.
jmbwell 3 hours ago [-]
Swapping out old problems for new ones is a great way to climb the ranks among government accounts payable though
alfiedotwtf 4 hours ago [-]
> 363
LOL nice
fallingmeat 6 hours ago [-]
personal perspective- L3X has repeatedly demonstrated a corporate culture of accountability allergy. spiderman meme was made for L3. I think it goes up and down the chain
cogman10 6 hours ago [-]
This is standard practice for basically all defense contractors. I don't think there's hardly any of them that strive for excellence, just for next year's contract.
saturn8601 5 hours ago [-]
Very surprised because I know several fellow alumni that went on to do extremely technical low level "frontier level" work there. Due to the secret nature of their operations, what they literally do day to day is an angle I don't know much about so maybe its all nonsense but I don't get that feeling.
Jtsummers 5 hours ago [-]
Defense contractors, as a rule, seem to have a corporate culture of mediocrity and poor performance. But you will find pockets within them that do better, possibly even actually being "frontier level". IT projects, though, are not one of the things they tend to excel at. The FAA stuff as one example, but most IT procurements end up bogged down with years of delays or just failures. It's tradition now.
cogman10 3 hours ago [-]
Yes, to be clear I'm not trying to throw shade on the engineers working for defense contractors, but rather the business model and practice itself.
Failing to deliver is rewarded. Even in this instance, we see Sec Duffy asking for $50B to give to L3H because they failed so spectacularly.
These companies keep delivering edsels and our government's response is to double the investment on every failure.
4 hours ago [-]
bigstrat2003 5 hours ago [-]
There are certainly staff members at defense contractors who strive for excellence (I know several personally), but yeah the management culture is pretty fucked. Lots of cases where engineers point out what a bad idea something is, get overruled (because we have a deadline to meet, dammit), and then management acts shocked when it blows up in their faces.
drooby 6 hours ago [-]
I'm glad they're taking this seriously
oofbey 5 hours ago [-]
I kinda wish they'd take it "very seriously". Corporate communications generally take issues "very seriously". The fact that they're only taking it "seriously" makes me wonder if they're really taking it seriously or not.
rr808 5 hours ago [-]
Its like the people who are 101% committed dont sound as dedicated as the people that are 200% committed.
InsidiousWombat 4 hours ago [-]
If they did it wouldn't crash
otterley 2 hours ago [-]
Let he who has never failed at an important task raise his hand.
5 hours ago [-]
mannyv 4 hours ago [-]
We plugged the copper wire into the fiber optic terminal because that's what you do when you upgrade wires.
Unfortunately, light didn't move through the copper wire effectively and some meth heads stole the copper wire we had removed, forcing us to upgrade the whole copper wire wire to fiber optic wires.
Our new fiber optic wires carry much more light than the old copper wires, which will make the FAA system much more responsive in the future.
Thank you very much and have a nice day.
Freestyler_3 3 hours ago [-]
It could be FTL and FAA systems would still be just as responsive
Someone's gotta educate the asshole that the buck stops at him. He is responsible.
What exactly do you expect him to do? Put yourself in his shoes.
Resign.
It happened on his watch.
If he leaves maybe Trump would hire a competent replacement instead (unlikely, but can't be much worse than the current Cabinet of Clowns).
It’s stupid to fire engineers for accidentally causing operational incidents, and it’s similarly stupid to fire their bosses unless they intentionally or negligently set the stage to increase the risk of serious incidents. Mistakes are the fertilizer that bears the fruit of wisdom and experience.
Meanwhile, people here think Jensen Huang should be allowed to return to the helm at Nvidia even though doing so would be about the stupidest act the board could take; doing so would put the entire company at even greater risk of criminal liability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_American_Road_Trip_(...
> In 2008, 72 Iraqi civilians sued L3 Services for human rights violations they had endured at Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq, including "torture; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; war crimes; assault and battery; sexual assault and battery; intentional infliction of emotional distress; negligent hiring and supervision; and negligent infliction of emotional distress." A settlement was reached on October 10, 2012, which was the "first positive resolution to a U.S. civil case challenging detainee treatment outside the United States in the larger 'war on terror' context".
> In 2012, L3 subsidiary KDI Precision Products participated in the sale of 11,500 JDAM bomb fuzes to Israel, part of a $647 million contract deal. These were among the weapons used by the IDF in the 2014 Gaza War; the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights highlighted the IDF's weapons usages, which included attacks on densely populated civilian areas, as constituting potential war crimes.
> In June 2022, Chris Kubasik succeeded as the Chair following Bill Brown's retirement. That same month it was reported to have held talks to purchase the Israeli company NSO, which builds Pegasus spyware. White House officials heard of the talks and voiced opposition, resulting in L3Harris discontinuing its plans.
> In October 2025, Israel entered into a memorandum of understanding with L3Harris to facilitate the acquisition of new light attack aircraft intended for border defense, aimed at developing the Israeli Sky Warden variant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L3Harris
Is the implication that an American company would not be able to continue their business model legally? But they could just sell to the government instead, as L3Harris' other zero-day companies do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_s...
Very similar to this, which SpaceX was also involved in:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Falcon_Project
Warmongering is just a tool the military industrial complex uses to feed itself taxpayer dollars. (Oh and SpaceX is an even bigger player than L3Harris for the record).
U.S. is squarely to blame for any arms race in space.
Funny story. Chris Kubasik was the heir apparent at Lockheed but got kicked to the curb when he couldn't keep his dick in his pants at work. Ended up getting the CEO job at L3Harris and then what does he do?
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/17/l3harris-ceo-chris-kubasik-l...
Well, as they say, all publicity is good publicity?
I had thought the L3 was from Level 3 Communications and Harris, but its actually L3 Technologies which seems to be a holding company for defense contractors.
So I bought a Fortigate firewall on ebay some years back for a lab device, I password recovered it to break in and recover it, and it came up registered to them, and still under Enterprise license support for like 6mo. Great, that's exactly what I wanted for a lab device! I looked them up to see they were a defense contractor, ok, so more money than brains. I'll take advantage...
That 6mo came and went, and they renewed the support on it for another year, and my firewall saw the entitlement. Even better, I continued to use it. After 4 years finally the device went EOL/EOS and expired with no more support available, I was sad.
Obviously these guys are fsckheads, more money and contracts from friends in high places than brains. This totally explains why the air system melted down!
Palo Alto, Sophos, Cisco, Juniper, UniFi... Anything except maybe Barracuda.
Great first impression from a technical company
Thank goodness
LOL nice
Failing to deliver is rewarded. Even in this instance, we see Sec Duffy asking for $50B to give to L3H because they failed so spectacularly.
These companies keep delivering edsels and our government's response is to double the investment on every failure.
Unfortunately, light didn't move through the copper wire effectively and some meth heads stole the copper wire we had removed, forcing us to upgrade the whole copper wire wire to fiber optic wires.
Our new fiber optic wires carry much more light than the old copper wires, which will make the FAA system much more responsive in the future.
Thank you very much and have a nice day.