FAA Orders Nationwide Ground Stop After Telecommunications Outage

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The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a ground stop at all airports nationwide on Friday afternoon due to a "temporary telecommunications outage" affecting all US air route traffic control centers. Flights already in the air can continue flying, and whether inbound international flights can land will depend on specific circumstances.

What happened

The FAA and the US Department of Transportation said the ground stop was implemented due to a "temporary communication failure" affecting all US air route traffic control centers, citing this "special situation and safety reasons." Transport secretary Sean Duffy said the order resulted from a "communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers." The US has 22 regional ARTCCs, which oversee high-altitude airspace.

According to Flightradar24, by 7.30pm EST flight cancellations across the US had exceeded 5,000 and were "rising rapidly," with Chicago O’Hare, New York’s LaGuardia and Atlanta International airports the worst affected. There were more than 1,000 flights on the ground waiting to depart US airports at around 6.45pm EST, according to Flightradar24.

Official statements

Homeland Security secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters at the White House there was "no indication, and we had no reason to believe as of right now, that this was a threat to the United States." He described it as "a telecommunication outage throughout [the] FAA" and said all flights were accounted for as incoming flights, either internationally or flights still in the air, to be dealt with case by case.

Asked whether the outage was caused by a cyber attack or an AI intrusion, Mullin said: "We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves" but "we’re not ruling out anything." Mullin also said the Microsoft and air traffic control issues were not related, calling them "separate issues."

The company Air Space Intelligence, which designed a new "smart" AI-powered scheduling tool for air traffic controllers, issued a statement saying that "the current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC."

Context and impact

It is only the second time flights have been grounded across the US since the attacks on September 11 2001. The previous instance was in January 2023 when the FAA experienced an outage of its Notice to Air Missions messaging system due to a corrupted data file. The FAA found that the resulting 90-minute ground stop, which led to the delay of more than 10,000 flights, had been caused by human error and not a cyber attack.

Aviation authorities in Canada and Europe also said flights to and from the US have been affected, although some flights to foreign destinations have been allowed to depart. Shares in the big three US carriers United, American and Delta Air Lines were each down more than 1.5 per cent in after-hours trading in New York.

Why it matters

• The nationwide ground stop disrupted the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers.
• The outage affected all 22 regional Air Route Traffic Control Centers that oversee high-altitude airspace.
• Disruption from ground stops can last for days if it causes aircraft and crews to be out of location, affecting future schedules.

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Sources

• international.caixin.com (in Chinese): US Flights Ground Nationwide Due to Communication Failure; Homeland Security Secretary Emphasizes It Is Not "Another 9/11"
• ft.com: US aviation regulator grounds flights across the country

This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.