FACTS
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop on Friday, Nov. 13, halting departing flights at all U.S. airports shortly before 4 p.m. Eastern time. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a communication issue was affecting all of the regional centers that direct planes between airports, and that FAA technicians were investigating. Flights already in the air were allowed to land.
The FAA ground stop was posted on the agency’s National Airspace System Status website, CBS News reported. The FAA advisory said the stop was ordered “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” according to The Associated Press. The advisory said, “All departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice,” and that “inbound international flights will be managed on a case by case basis,” according to FOX 13.
What officials said about the FAA ground stop
In a social media post, Duffy said the ground stop followed a “communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers,” CBS News reported. “FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them,” Duffy wrote.
Air Route Traffic Control Centers handle aircraft flying between airports at higher altitudes. Duffy did not say which system failed, according to AeroTime.
The problems began around 3:30 p.m. Eastern time at the FAA’s air traffic control center in Kansas City and then spread to other centers, The Weather Channel reported. Shortly before the nationwide order, the FAA halted traffic in Chicago because of air traffic control communications issues, Reuters reported.
Flights and airports affected
Flight tracking service FlightAware showed nearly 7,000 flights delayed or canceled, Reuters reported. About 3,100 aircraft were in the air and bound for U.S. airports when the stop took effect, according to Flightradar24 data cited by The Weather Channel and AeroTime. AeroTime noted that figure counts all U.S.-bound flights in the air, and that the number of planes actually holding was unclear.
The FAA later advised flight crews to expect airborne holding at airports nationwide because of equipment outages, AeroTime reported.
Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport said it was holding all departures, according to AeroTime. At San Francisco International Airport, spokesman Doug Yakel said planes already on their way continued to land while departures were held, AeroTime reported. An MPR News journalist reported that flights were also halted at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
The Weather Channel advised travelers to check with their airline for current flight information.
Past nationwide ground stops
This is the second nationwide ground stop of all departures since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Reuters reported. The first came in January 2023, when a failure of the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions system paused domestic departures for less than two hours.
Earlier on Friday, the FAA and the White House asked Congress for an additional $30.1 billion to modernize air traffic control and other aviation infrastructure, Reuters and AeroTime reported. Congress approved $12.5 billion for the overhaul last year, according to Reuters.
What is not yet known
Officials had not said what caused the communication issue or when departures would resume. The National Weather Service also reported a national radar outage on Friday, The Weather Channel reported, but it was not clear whether the two were related.
As of 5:20 p.m. Eastern time, none of the news reports reviewed by Stay Current News said the ground stop had been lifted. This story will be updated as the FAA and the Department of Transportation release more information.
More national news is on the Stay Current News U.S. page.
Photo: File photo of an American Airlines Boeing 777 at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, taken in 2006, not during the ground stop. Joe Jones / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
