FAA grounds flights at all U.S. airports, citing ‘telecommunications outage’

WASHINGTON - The Federal Aviation Administration issued a rare and unexpected nationwide ground stop Friday afternoon, citing a “temporary telecommunications outage,” though Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication of a nefarious attack.

Mullin told reporters that the Trump administration is not ruling out a cyberattack but that it doesn’t yet have evidence pointing in that direction.

“The first thing we want to do is make sure we restore the communications. We get all the flights on the ground, and then we get back to normal operations. But we’re going to continue to work to find out what the root of the cause is,” he said. “We’re not ruling out anything at this point. The first thing is the safety of everybody that’s flying.”

Speaking in the early evening, Mullin warned that it may take some time to restore air traffic to normal, saying that “this isn’t going to just be resolved and turned around within the next hour.”

He said the problems were not connected to the Microsoft outage that caused global disruptions Thursday into Friday.

The FAA said earlier Friday afternoon that agency technicians “are investigating the issue” and that its information was preliminary and subject to change. Duffy said on X that the FAA’s nationwide ground stop followed “a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.”

The ground stop was related to issues with radio frequencies used by pilots and air traffic controllers to communicate with each other, according to three people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.

This is the second national ground stop since Sept. 11, 2001. The FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop in January 2023 over a systems outage.

On Friday, about 3,115 flights were still inbound to U.S. airports at about 4:40 p.m. Eastern, according to flight-tracking platform AirNav Radar. These were the last planes to get off the ground before the ground stop. About 4,500 flights would normally be in the air at that time during normal operations, the company said.

The ground stop caused confusion at airports and in the air.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority said passengers should expect flight delays related to the ground stop, but Reagan National Airport and Washington Dulles International Airport remained open.

At Los Angeles International Airport, a United Airlines gate agent announced to passengers that there had been a nationwide ground stop but said she did not know why.

Pilots and air traffic controllers across the United States learned about the ground stop Friday afternoon.

“Why is there a ground stop?” a pilot asked Friday afternoon at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, according to air traffic control recordings on ATC.com. “We are not aware of a reason. We just know it’s indefinite and U.S.-wide,” an air traffic controller replied.

At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, an air traffic controller told a Southwest Airlines pilot, “Just a heads up, we went into a national ground stop, all aircraft, with update unknown.”

A United spokesperson said the airline was responding to the ground stop. United flights that are already airborne will continue, the spokesperson said, but new domestic flights will not depart while the ground stop remains in place.

An American Airlines spokesperson said the airline expected disruption to its schedule for the rest of the day, depending on the length of the ground stop.

On Tuesday, just days before the outage, the FAA announced a controversial new AI tool for advising air traffic controllers was being rolled out nationwide.

The $875 million SMART system, launched in September, was going to be used at all 22 major air route control centers “to reduce delays, reduce fuel consumption and improve the travel experience for the flying public,” the FAA said.

It is not clear if the SMART system played any role in Friday’s ground stop.

The agency has called the system “a cutting-edge tool.” It was first implemented at D.C.-area airports.

In early October, a group of House and Senate Democrats sent a letter to the FAA asking the agency to pause the AI tool’s use “until the agency answers questions about safety testing, implementation, and oversight.” (Source: The Washington Post)