The Federal Aviation Administration lifted a nationwide ground stop caused by communications problems, allowing airplane departures to resume after roughly four hours.
The Federal Aviation Administration said airplane departures can resume after lifting a nationwide ground stop caused by communications problems. The stop lasted a total of roughly four hours, easily surpassing the 2023 outage of 90 minutes.
The FAA grounded all flights nationwide Friday afternoon due to issues at regional air traffic control centers, an FAA notice said. Officials cited “extraordinary circumstances” caused by communications problems at regional air traffic control centers. The agency said flights were halted “out of an abundance of caution.”
It was the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023, when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned. Before that, the last time had been after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the U.S. air traffic control system is “incredibly old” and relies on an analog system that got overloaded with data.
“This is an emergency,” he said, calling on Congress for emergency funding for upgrades.
Duffy said getting planes back in the air will take some time and that getting air traffic back to normal would be slow.
“And last time I looked, we had less than, 400 in the airspace,” Duffy said.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication yet that “this was a nefarious attack against us. It’s just a telecommunications outage.” Mullin said the introduction of some new technology into an old air traffic control system overwhelmed it. The system needs funding for a complete overhaul, he said, estimating a $50 billion price tag.
Mullin said there was never any indication the failure was related to a cyberattack.
At least 600 flights have been diverted so far as a result of the FAA’s order to ground all air traffic nationwide. As of 5:50 p.m. Eastern, 496 flights were diverted to the airport from where they originally took off, while 104 were sent to a different airport, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics company.
Some 11,000 flights carrying more than 1.5 million passengers were scheduled to take off from airports in the U.S. after 4 p.m. Eastern, raising the likelihood of more cancellations and flight diversions.
JetBlue canceled all remaining domestic flights Friday evening, saying only Europe-bound flights out of Boston Logan International Airport and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport would be able to depart Friday night. The airline said it expects disruptions to continue into tomorrow, including additional cancellations.
Air Canada canceled all of its flights to and from the U.S. for the rest of Friday evening, a result of the U.S. ground stop ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Alaska Airlines said its flights within the state of Alaska and its “neighbor island” flights in Hawaii are not impacted by the nationwide grounding of flights.
Europe’s aviation agency suspended U.S.-bound departures at the request of the FAA from 5 p.m. Eastern on Friday until midnight. The agency manages air traffic for its 42 member countries across the continent.
Mexico’s federal aviation agency said all scheduled flights from Mexican airports headed to the U.S. are grounded for the time being.
The outage disrupted air travel across the United States and affected international flights to and from the U.S. Officials said restoring normal operations will take time, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Congress should authorize billions of dollars in spending to modernize federal aviation safety.
Sources
This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.
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The FAA lifted a nationwide ground stop on all U.S. flights Friday evening after suspending takeoffs due to communication failures at air route traffic control centers. Widespread cancellations and delays are expected over the next two days.
