The Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide ground stop on Friday for all flights due to take off in the US, causing FlightAware to report that nearly 11,000 flights faced delays or cancellations. This disruption marks only the third time in history that the FAA has grounded all departing flights, following the events of September 11, 2001, and a pilot notification system malfunction in January 2023.
Communication outage impacts air traffic
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated on X that the stoppage stems from "a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers." CNN reports the FAA told airlines that router malfunctions likely originated at Chicago Midway airport and spread across the country. Department of Homeland Security Director Markwayne Mullin said in a news conference that preliminary investigations do not indicate a "nefarious attack" against the system.
"There’s no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack against it. It’s just a telecommunications outage as of right now," Mullin told reporters. He added that while the immediate priority involves landing planes already in the air, the agency will continue to work to find the root cause. Mullin also noted that officials are not ruling out anything at this point.
| Event Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Total delayed/canceled flights | Nearly 11,000 |
| Ground stop reason | Router malfunctions |
| Previous ground stop | January 2023 |
Travelers face significant disruptions
At Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, travelers sat on floors using luggage as makeshift desks for laptops while searching for updates. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said she is in contact with leadership at Los Angeles World Airports to assess impacts at LAX. British Airways cancelled a flight to New York scheduled for 10:30pm on Friday night, and Manchester airport confirmed three Virgin Atlantic flights bound for the US on Saturday morning likely face issues.
Systemic infrastructure failures
This failure follows an announcement last week that the first digital air traffic control towers became operational in Alaska and Florida. Congress approved $12.5bn last year to fix ageing communications systems, but the FAA and White House asked for another $30.1bn on Friday.
