F.A.A. Orders Rare Nationwide Ground Stop Over Air Traffic Control Outage
The Federal Aviation Administration imposed a rare nationwide ground stop on Friday afternoon, grounding all U.S. departures after a major outage in its air traffic control system. The agency cited “extraordinary circumstances” and “reasons of safety.” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a communication issue was affecting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers and that FAA technicians were investigating, promising updates as they became available.
An official advisory said all airports were ground-stopped and that departing traffic must remain on the ground until further notice. Landings of inbound international flights would be handled case by case. Shortly after the notice appeared, an FAA website listing air traffic control system notices went down, wiping out dozens of previously posted alerts. The halt began shortly before 4 p.m. Eastern Time. More than 30,000 flights were still scheduled for the rest of the day, according to the tracking app Flighty, and Flightradar24 reported more than 1,000 aircraft already airborne toward U.S. airports.
Even a brief pause would delay thousands of flights; a longer one could force cancellations as crews hit legal duty limits, with knock-on effects through the weekend. At Denver, passengers were taken off aircraft with their bags; some rebooked for the next day while most waited. A Southwest attendant said the airline expected an update in 30 minutes. The last nationwide FAA flight stop was in 2023, when contractors accidentally deleted files tied to an alert system used to communicate with pilots, delaying thousands of flights. The situation remained developing.
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