FAA Orders Nationwide Ground Stop at US Airports After Air-Traffic Communications Outage

On Friday, Nov. 13, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered every departing aircraft in the United States to stay on the ground until further notice. The agency cited extraordinary circumstances and safety concerns tied to an air-traffic control problem, and said frequency issues across the National Airspace System were behind the halt.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the order followed a communication problem affecting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers. In a post on X, he said FAA technicians were investigating and that updates would come as they became available. Flight tracking company Flightradar24 reported that the FAA issued the order after an equipment outage.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, speaking to reporters outside the White House, described a "telecommunication outage throughout FAA." He said there was no prior indication, as of that moment, that the outage was a nefarious attack, calling it a telecommunication outage "as of right now." He also said every flight was accounted for and that a priority list would govern how planes come into airports as they start arriving.

Just after 5 p.m. ET, the FAA posted on X that all flights had been halted out of an abundance of caution during a temporary telecommunications outage. Flights already airborne were not ordered to land immediately, and international flights bound for the United States would be handled case by case.

The scale of the disruption was already visible. Reuters reported that nearly 7,000 flights across the country had been delayed or canceled, though no breakdown between delays and cancellations was immediately available, and the FAA had not released its own count of affected flights or passengers.

At airports, the effects were felt in different ways. Hollywood Burbank Airport received notice shortly before 1 p.m. local time. Public information officer Mike Christensen told The Desert Sun he knew little beyond "some kind of equipment outage" and warned that delays would continue and that things could back up into the afternoon. The airport urged passengers to contact their airlines. At Los Angeles International Airport, all departures were halted as of about 1:45 p.m. Pacific time, a spokesperson confirmed to the USA TODAY Network.

At Newark Liberty International Airport, almost an hour after the stop was announced, no airport-wide announcement had been made. One employee, told by a passenger of the nationwide stop, reacted with disbelief to a coworker. Passengers clustered at gates, many on their phones, trying to work out what to do about checked luggage. Flight 124 to Athens announced at 4:53 p.m. ET that all boarding groups could board, though it was unclear whether the plane could depart.

The FAA advisory lists an effective period from 3:54 p.m. ET to 11:30 p.m. ET, but the directive says aircraft stay grounded until further notice, so that end time guarantees nothing. The agency has given no estimate for a return to normal operations.

This is not the first such stoppage since 9/11. On Jan. 11, 2023, the FAA halted departures nationwide when its Notice to Air Missions system failed. Contractors had accidentally deleted files while synchronizing the primary database with a backup. That stop lasted nearly two hours, with disruptions through the day, and investigators found no evidence of a cyberattack. Afterward the FAA added a one-hour delay between database updates, and on Sept. 29, 2025, Administrator Bryan Bedford said a new NOTAM service had been built that was resilient and scalable.

For now, travelers booked on Friday flights are being told to check their airline's website or app before heading to the airport. What to watch is when the FAA lifts the order, and what it says caused the outage.