Markwayne Mullin says the communications problem behind the FAA ground stop is not linked to Thursday's global Microsoft outage.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday afternoon, Mullin said the two were separate matters, CNN reports.
"I don't see any reason to connect those two at all. Those are separate issues."
The Microsoft outage took place on Thursday 12 November, the day before the FAA grounded flights at US airports citing "extraordinary circumstances".
Mullin's statement rules out one obvious line of speculation, but it has not been independently checked. No detail has yet been given on the cause of the FAA communications problem itself.