FAA grounds all US departures after nationwide air traffic communications outage

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop for departing flights on Friday after a telecommunications outage disrupted air traffic control communications, marking the second such shutdown since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Flight-tracking service FlightAware reported that more than 1,000 flights were cancelled and nearly 10,000 were delayed, while thousands of aircraft already in the air were permitted to land. The outage also affected international flights, prompting cancellations from Canada and Europe.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters that there was no evidence of a cyberattack, describing the incident as a “telecommunication outage.” He said President Donald Trump had been briefed and added that the public should not be afraid.

The FAA has not set a time for lifting the ground stop, but officials noted that communications were improving in some locations. At the time of the stop, 4,042 flights were airborne, according to Flightradar24.

The incident highlights ongoing challenges for the U.S. air traffic control system, which faces aging infrastructure, equipment failures and staffing shortages. The agency recently announced plans to eliminate floppy disks used for weather data at more than 400 facilities by the end of 2028.

Analyst Robert Mann warned that if the ground stop extends into the evening, it could take the weekend to resolve airline disruptions. The only previous nationwide ground stop occurred in January 2023 and lasted less than two hours.

Separately, the National Weather Service reported nationwide internet and communications problems, though no link between the two incidents has been identified.