The United States halted all departing flights nationwide on Friday, 13 November, after a telecommunications outage hit air traffic control centres. The Federal Aviation Administration announced the stop at 3:54 p.m. ET and lifted it more than four hours later.
The agency said the stop was due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety, following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers. Those are the 22 regional centres that direct planes en route between airports nationwide.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed old hardware, saying switches and routers were overloaded with data, causing intermittent communication and radar. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication of a nefarious attack, describing it as a telecommunications outage. He said President Donald Trump had been briefed, and added: “This isn't another 9/11.”
The impact was huge. More than 4,700 flights were cancelled and 10,000 delayed on Friday, while 827 flights were diverted. About 11,000 flights carrying more than 1.5 million passengers had been scheduled to take off after 4 p.m. ET.
Flights already in the air were allowed to continue, while all 42 Eurocontrol member states halted departures at the FAA's request.
It was the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023. The last one before that came after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Investigators are checking whether there is any link to a new artificial intelligence system for air traffic control.
The government had approved 12.5 billion dollars last year to overhaul the system, and Duffy says another 30 billion dollars is still needed. Analysts warned it could take days for airlines to restore normal schedules.
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