The FAA lifted the nationwide ground stop at about 8:15 p.m. ET Friday after more than four hours, an agency spokesperson confirmed, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the airspace had been reopened. Delays were expected to continue.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a rare nationwide ground stop Friday afternoon, directing departing flights at airports across the United States to remain on the ground after a communication issue hit air traffic control centers. The FAA lifted the order shortly after 8 p.m. ET.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the FAA issued the stop “following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.”
“The @FAAnews issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers. FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them,” Duffy wrote.
The FAA’s official account reposted his statement. The order took effect at 3:54 p.m. ET, flight-tracking service Flightradar24 reported, and ended at about 8:15 p.m. ET, when the FAA said the ground stop was over, ABC News reported. An FAA spokesperson confirmed to The Washington Post that it had been lifted.
In an updated advisory issued at 5:46 p.m. ET, the FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center said the nationwide ground stop “remains in effect,” listed the reason as a communications failure and said that “as enroute facilities recover, flights will be allowed to depart through coordination with the Air Traffic Control System Command Center.” The advisory set its next expected update for 11 p.m. ET.
Duffy and Mullin then briefed reporters at the White House. “At 8:15 tonight, Eastern time, we’ve opened up the airspace,” Duffy said, CBS News reported. “Now does that mean every flight is going to fly right now? It’s going to be slow. So if you’re watching, you’re at an airport, check with your airline.”
Duffy said “inconsistency” in data from routers in the air traffic control system led the FAA to order the stop, and described an “incredibly old air traffic control system” that uses analog telecom, ABC News reported. Sources told CBS News that an update to the private communications network connecting the air traffic control system caused it to reboot, leading to a crash and a communications outage. The network is operated by L3Harris, which did not immediately respond to CBS’ request for comment. The FAA has not publicly confirmed that account.
Before the stop was lifted, some flights had been allowed out on a case-by-case basis. American Airlines said at 7:38 p.m. ET that “some flights from certain airports are beginning to receive clearance to depart” but that “most departures remain paused,” and Alaska Airlines said flights within Alaska and between the Hawaiian islands were not affected. San Francisco International Airport said Pacific-bound flights, including to Hawaii and Asia, were cleared to leave at 3 p.m. local time (6 p.m. ET), NBC News reported, and an airline source told The Air Current that the FAA had begun releasing some international flights to Europe.
Around 5 p.m. ET, the FAA said on X: “There has been a temporary telecommunications outage – out of an abundance of caution all flights have been halted. Every flight has been accounted for and international flights will be handled on a case by case basis.”
“Due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” the FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center said in an advisory, “all airports are ground stopped.” The alert told all departing traffic to stay on the ground “until further notice” and said inbound international flights “will be managed on a case by case basis,” according to the text published by Fox Business and Flightradar24.
In a separate statement, the FAA said the problems were affecting “multiple” Air Route Traffic Control Centers and that technicians were investigating, Axios and CNBC reported. The United States has 22 of those centers, which handle high-altitude traffic between airports, Flightradar24 and ABC News noted.
The FAA has not officially said what caused the disruption. Before the stop was lifted, an FAA advisory had listed an estimated end time of 11 p.m. ET, with the order’s effective period running until 11:30 p.m. ET, USA Today reported.
A ground stop holds aircraft at their departure airports. It does not automatically cancel flights, and planes already in the air were being allowed to land, Reuters, Flightradar24 and NBC Chicago reported. Flightradar24 said about 4,000 flights bound for U.S. airports were already airborne when the order was issued.
FlightAware, another tracking service, showed 9,023 delayed flights within, into or out of the United States as of 8:55 p.m. ET, along with 6,185 cancellations. Those figures cover the full day and include earlier weather delays at some airports.
With departures halted, some airports ran short of space to park arriving jets. A source told NBC News that Reagan National Airport was at capacity and Chicago O’Hare was nearing capacity, meaning some planes may have to divert to other airports.
FAA notices posted on the agency’s airport status site showed Reagan National closed to diversion aircraft from 7:04 p.m. ET Friday until 6 a.m. ET Saturday, and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International closed to diversion aircraft “due to capacity” from 6:23 p.m. ET until 4 a.m. ET Saturday.
Officials from multiple agencies told NBC News there was no indication at this early stage that the outage was caused by malicious activity, while cautioning that the investigation was just beginning. Air Space Intelligence, a vendor for the FAA’s new SMART traffic-management system, said in a statement that the ground stop “is not based on or a result of the SMART system,” NBC reported. The FAA has not said what caused the outage.
Shortly before the nationwide order, the FAA had already stopped traffic headed to Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports because of an equipment outage, Reuters, FOX 32 Chicago and ABC News reported. The Chicago Department of Aviation reported 213 delays at O’Hare and 55 at Midway as of 3:11 p.m., NBC Chicago said.
CNBC, citing an internal Alaska Airlines message, said the problems involved communications and radar. The FAA has not confirmed that description.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters at the White House that there was no indication the outage was an attack on the United States.
“Everybody’s safe,” Mullin said, adding that this was not “another 9/11.” He said the focus was on restoring communications and getting all flights on the ground. He also said there was no reason to connect the FAA problem with a separate Microsoft outage.
At the evening briefing, Mullin said “it appears that this was mechanically driven. However, we’re still looking, so we’re not going to rule that out.” “I just want to reiterate this: The public was never at danger through this process,” he said, adding there was “no cyberattack,” ABC News reported.
Microsoft also said it had seen no connection. “Microsoft has no indication that the FAA nationwide ground stop is related to the recent service disruption,” a company spokesperson told NBC News.
Nationwide ground stops are extremely rare. The last one came on Jan. 11, 2023, when a failure of the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions system, which provides pilots with required safety information, halted domestic departures for about 90 minutes and led to more than 10,000 delays and 1,300 cancellations. Before that, the agency stopped traffic nationwide after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Congress last year approved $12.5 billion to fix the FAA’s aging communications system, and on Friday, before the ground stop, the FAA and the White House asked lawmakers for another $30.1 billion for aviation improvements, Reuters reported.
Major airlines began offering waivers. Delta is letting passengers change Friday and Saturday flights at no extra cost, and United said it would waive change fees and fare differences for rebooked United flights departing between Nov. 12 and Nov. 20 in the same cabin and between the same cities, ABC News reported.
Travelers were being advised to check directly with their airlines for the latest information, as delays were expected to continue. This account was current as of 8:55 p.m. ET Friday.
This is a breaking story and may be updated if events warrant.
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