FAA lifts nationwide ground stop after communications failure cancelled thousands of flights worldwide

Around 4 p.m. Eastern on Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration stopped every flight in the country from departing. The agency cited "extraordinary circumstances." Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy described the cause as a communication issue affecting all of the country's Air Route Traffic Control Centers. By Friday night the FAA had lifted the order and said departures could resume, but not before thousands of flights worldwide had been cancelled or suspended and hundreds had been diverted.

It was only the second nationwide ground stop in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The FAA gave no timeline for restarting flights while the order was in effect. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication of a threat to the country. "There was never any lives at risk," he said, adding that no flights were at risk either and that the stop was ordered out of an abundance of caution. He also acknowledged the conspiracy theories circulating online about the cause and tried to play them down. The White House said Mullin and Duffy would brief reporters Friday evening.

The effects reached well into Canada. Air Canada cancelled all of its flights to and from the U.S. through Friday, and spokesperson Yasmine Mehdi said service to the Caribbean and South America might also be affected because those routes pass through U.S. airspace. Aircraft already in the air were told they could continue. At Toronto Billy Bishop Airport, Air Canada and Porter Airlines cancelled all remaining U.S. flights for the day. At Regina International, a Minneapolis-St. Paul flight due Friday night was cancelled.

At Toronto Pearson, spokesperson Erica Vella called the situation "very fluid." She told CP24 that more than 100 U.S. flights had been cancelled, along with 20 other international flights. Passengers without a confirmed booking were told not to come to the airport. The airport added staff, deployed support teams through the terminals, including the U.S. departures area, and put a parking plan in place for aircraft. Flights that do not cross U.S. airspace kept operating. NAV CANADA brought in traffic management measures at national airports, and Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said on X that Canada had offered the FAA its full assistance, including accommodating U.S.-bound aircraft as needed. Ottawa also updated its U.S. travel advisory to warn of air travel disruptions.

The disruption spread beyond North America. Europe's aviation agency, which manages air traffic for its 42 member countries, suspended U.S.-bound departures at the FAA's request from 5 p.m. Eastern until midnight. Around the same time, San Francisco's airport began clearing Pacific flights for Hawaii and Asia, and Boston Logan said transatlantic flights had been given permission to depart, though it did not say how many or where they were headed. Mullin had said international flights would be handled case by case.

Sports schedules were thrown off too. The Nets, one of five NBA teams due to fly Friday for Saturday games, had boarded in New Orleans for Memphis when the flight was halted. The Pistons had already reached Miami. The Cavaliers, Bulls and Grizzlies were due to fly after Friday night games. Of 14 NHL games on Saturday, the Panthers had reached St. Louis in time, while the Sharks were waiting to leave for Utah. With no restart timeline given at the time, most of the NFL's Week 10 schedule was also uncertain. Amtrak reported higher-than-normal call volumes, and Downdetector showed reports of Amtrak outages jumping around 7 p.m. Eastern as travellers turned to rail.

The cause has not been confirmed. Microsoft said it had no indication the stop was related to its Outlook and other service outage on Thursday. The FAA's new AI-powered SMART system, a prediction tool run from a single site near Washington, D.C., does not appear to be involved, and its designer, ASI, said the ground stop was not based on or a result of SMART or any of its products. What officials say next about the communications failure is what to watch, along with how quickly airlines work through the backlog of cancellations.