FAA Grounds All U.S. Flights Over Radar and Communications Problems

The Federal Aviation Administration stopped all flights across the United States starting around 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Friday after a telecommunications problem hit air traffic control, Northeastern Global News reported. The ground stop was lifted late Friday after more than four hours, and by 6:30 p.m. more than 3,000 U.S. flights had been canceled, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware.

Several hundred flights for Saturday were canceled in advance. The halt also covered cargo flights, including those run by UPS and FedEx. Officials said the cause was aging air traffic control infrastructure, and they said there was no indication of a cyberattack.

What went wrong in air traffic control

The FAA said it ordered the stop “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.” At a White House briefing Friday evening, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the trigger was instability in radar and communications at the agency’s centers.

Duffy said the centers did not lose all of their telecommunications and radar. He described the decision to ground flights as a precaution taken to keep the public safe. He blamed old air traffic control equipment for the failure and asked Congress to approve about $50 billion in federal money that he said is needed to upgrade and modernize the system.

Officials rule out a cyberattack

Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who also spoke at the briefing, said there was no sign of a cyberattack or any other threat to national security.

The ground stop came one day after a global Microsoft outage cut millions of people off from Outlook email, Teams and other office apps. Mullin told reporters earlier on Friday that the two events were unrelated. “Those are separate issues,” he said, according to CNN.

Why it matters for travelers

A stop of every flight in the country is rare. Friday’s was only the second nationwide ground stop since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Northeastern Global News reported. The one before it came in January 2023, when a system that sends notices to pilots stopped working.

The stop fell two weeks before Thanksgiving, one of the busiest travel periods of the year in the U.S. Because cargo planes were grounded too, mail and package shipments by air were held up along with passengers.

Travelers whose flights were canceled can check their airline’s app or website for flight status and rebooking options.

Is service back to normal?

The FAA lifted the nationwide ground stop late Friday, after more than four hours of cancellations. The effects ran into the weekend: airlines had called off several hundred Saturday flights in advance, according to the same report. Travelers on Saturday flights can confirm their status with the airline before heading to the airport.

Source: Northeastern Global News