PROVIDENCE, R.I. — U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., called Saturday for an independent investigation of the Federal Aviation Administration's nationwide ground stop and for prompt public hearings with testimony from nonpartisan experts, saying the Trump administration's explanations so far have been "insufficient."

Reed said the U.S. Department of Transportation's inspector general and other federal watchdogs should investigate the grounding, which his office said stranded thousands of passengers at airports across the country before the FAA ended it.

Reed said he was disappointed by what he called unconvincing explanations Friday from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who, according to Reed's office, initially suggested that newly installed technology had overloaded the FAA's aging air traffic control systems. On Saturday, Reed's office said, Duffy pointed to possible incompetence by FAA contractor L3Harris.

Reed also said he was unconvinced by Duffy's demand for an immediate $50 billion to fix the problem. His office called that a "seemingly arbitrary figure" and said it was $19.9 billion more than the $30.1 billion Duffy had formally requested a day earlier.

"This was a national fiasco and the American people deserve answers," Reed said. "It wreaked havoc on our economy, people's travel, and airline schedules that will take days to untangle."

Reed asked why, if the outage stemmed from routine maintenance, system updates were being done "during the busiest time of air travel instead of off-peak overnight hours when air traffic is at lower levels."

"Shoveling money at the problem isn't the same as fixing it," Reed said. He argued that questions have been raised about whether the FAA's implementation strategy was moving faster than its safety evaluations, workforce training and independent oversight could support, and said he would work on a bipartisan basis to get the public answers.

Reed's release did not include a response from Duffy, Mullin, the FAA or L3Harris.

The Signal reported Friday that the FAA had issued a rare nationwide ground stop that afternoon, halting departures to U.S. airports, including Boston Logan International Airport and airports across New England. The FAA said at the time that the stop followed "communication issues impacting multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers" and that its technicians were investigating.

Earlier coverage: FAA halts departures to all U.S. airports, grounding flights at Logan and across New England

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