FAA ends longest US ground stop

More than 1.5 million passengers were scheduled to fly domestically after 4 p.m. EST Friday when the Federal Aviation Administration imposed a nationwide ground stop. The halt lasted five hours, marking the longest such suspension in the United States in 25 years. The FAA lifted the order in the evening, allowing a limited number of domestic departures to resume immediately.

Administration officials attributed the failure to a clash between new and old infrastructure. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin stated that the installation of new equipment and technology overwhelmed the aging components of the air traffic control system. He described the resulting gaps in communications and radar as intermittent. Mullin told reporters at the White House that no one was in danger while more than 3,000 flights landed safely.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said he could not guarantee the issue would not recur. He blamed Congress for failing to approve additional funding for new technology, arguing that inaction injected risk into the system. Duffy said he expected flights to be fully operational by next weekend ahead of the Thanksgiving travel rush, but he suggested further disruptions were possible. He noted that the agency was able to review the failure and reboot the system.

The disruption was not linked to the FAA’s new AI-powered system, which is designed to predict problems in the sky. Duffy clarified that the new equipment deployed did not go down. Instead, the failure involved legacy equipment. The FAA began replacing thousands of old copper wires with fiber optic lines and upgrading hundreds of radio systems last year. This work follows a $12.5 billion funding approval from Congress. The White House and Duffy are now pushing for an additional $30 billion to complete the overhaul.

Aviation analytics firm Cirium reported that at least 827 flights were diverted by 7:05 p.m. EST. Of those, 670 were sent back to their original departure airports, while 157 were redirected to different destinations. Flights were diverted to hubs including Washington Dulles, Los Angeles International, and Nashville International airports. At the time of the stop, more than 3,500 airplanes were in the sky.

Mullin said officials found no footprints of a cyberattack or a rogue artificial intelligence incident. He characterized the problem as mechanically driven. Officials continued to search for the specific cause. The last nationwide ground stop occurred in January 2023, when a computer system that sends notices to pilots malfunctioned. Before that, the previous nationwide halt followed the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The stoppage left sports teams stranded as they attempted to reach their destinations. NBA, NHL, and college teams faced delays, while NFL teams waited to learn if they could travel in time for their weekend games. Duffy said the FAA would prioritize NCAA teams ahead of Saturday football games. He encouraged football teams to contact the FAA directly to schedule flight times and ensure they could reach kickoff.

Cargo flights also experienced delays. FedEx, the largest cargo airline in the world, said it was ready to activate contingency plans to minimize disruptions. U.S. airlines move approximately 61,000 tons of goods daily to and from more than 220 countries, according to the industry trade group Airlines for America. The current issue appears similar to a regional communication outage in September that snarled flights in the Northeast. That previous disruption was caused by a construction crew cutting a fiber optic line.

Steve Arroyo, a former United Airlines pilot and aviation safety expert, noted that this failure occurred on a nationwide scale. He said controllers were unable to reliably talk to pilots. When that ability is lost, airplanes must be kept on the ground to avoid the risk of losing communication while in the air. Arroyo said this event differed from the post-9/11 stop because planes were not ordered to land immediately, and pilots likely maintained some communication with ground controllers.

Travelers at Chicago O’Hare Airport learned of the stop by watching screens that displayed widespread delays. Amber McQuilkin, a 27-year-old software engineer from Seattle, sat on a bench disappointed that she might miss a trip to New York. She considered driving but decided against it. Ruth Coles was still stuck on her plane at Los Angeles International Airport five hours after landing from Newark. She said the pilot repeatedly told them they were next in line for a gate.