All departing flights at airports across the United States were halted for more than four hours on Friday after a communications failure affected the country’s air traffic control system, causing widespread delays and cancellations.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed the nationwide ground stop at about 3.54pm Eastern Time on November 13, citing “extraordinary circumstances” and safety concerns. The restriction was lifted shortly after 8.20pm, although airlines warned that disruption would continue as aircraft and passengers were repositioned.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said communications between air traffic control facilities had become unstable. He said the FAA had not lost all radar or telecommunications capability, but older switches and routers had been overwhelmed by data and were producing inconsistent information.
“Because of that, we shut the system down,” Mr Duffy told reporters at the White House. FAA technicians were investigating the failure, which affected multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centres.
FAA ground stop triggers widespread disruption
The FAA advisory ordered all airports to keep departing traffic on the ground, while inbound international flights were to be handled on a case-by-case basis. More than 3,000 aircraft already in the air were safely brought down during the stoppage, according to officials.
The agency’s records show the nationwide order began at 8.53pm UTC and was scheduled to remain in place until 4am UTC on Saturday. A separate FAA status update classified the incident as an equipment outage affecting all airports.
Airlines including American, United and Delta issued travel waivers, allowing passengers to change their plans without paying a fee. United said some aircraft had been diverted because of congestion at its hubs, while cancellations were being introduced across its network.
Flight-tracking data showed thousands of delays and cancellations during the disruption. Amtrak’s website and app also experienced difficulties as stranded travellers searched for alternatives.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no evidence at that stage of a cyberattack or other deliberate act, although officials had not ruled out any possibility while the investigation continued.
Mr Mullin said the outage was not an immediate threat to the public and rejected comparisons with the September 11 attacks. He added that some flights had continued to land while officials worked to restore normal operations.
Officials said the disruption was expected to take time to clear, but Mr Duffy predicted that US airports would be operating normally by the Thanksgiving travel period later in November. He cautioned, however, that airlines would need to recover from the backlog created by Friday’s stoppage.
The nationwide ground stop was the first of its kind since January 2023, when a malfunction in an FAA computer system caused flights to be temporarily halted across the country.
