FAA Orders Nationwide Ground Stop Over Air Traffic Control Outage; Officials Rule Out Attack

At Palm Springs International Airport, Bob Myers was about three minutes from boarding a flight to Portland, Oregon, when word came that nothing was leaving. On Friday, Nov. 13, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop, telling every departing aircraft to stay put until further notice. Myers rented a car instead and braced for a drive he expected to take 20 hours. "I have no idea when this is going to be resolved," he said.

The FAA cited extraordinary circumstances and safety concerns tied to an air traffic control problem. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the stop followed a communication issue affecting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers, and that FAA technicians were investigating. Flightradar24 reported the order came after an equipment outage, and the FAA's advisory also pointed to frequency issues across the National Airspace System. Planes already in the air were not told to land at once, and international flights bound for the United States would be handled case by case.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, speaking to reporters outside the White House, described a "telecommunication outage throughout FAA." He said the flights were held out of an abundance of caution, that there was no prior indication of a nefarious attack, and that this was not another 9/11. But he stopped short of closing doors. Asked about a cyber attack or an artificial intelligence intrusion, he said, "We're not ruling anything out at this point." He also saw no reason to link the outage to recent nationwide Microsoft Outlook problems. Just after 5 p.m. ET, the FAA posted that every flight had been accounted for, and Mullin said a priority list would govern planes as they began arriving at airports.

The worry about hostile action was real enough to reach analysts. Colin P. Clarke of the Soufan Group said colleagues had been texting to ask whether Iran was responsible. He had seen no evidence of cyber terrorism as of Friday afternoon, but noted that with the U.S. at war with a country like Iran, which has a reputation for effective cyber attacks, the nation is on high alert. Four or five people had asked him, he said, and that kind of anxiety is part of the psychological effect.

Speculation also touched SMART, the FAA's airspace planning system, whose expansion nationwide had been announced three days earlier. SMART, launched in the Washington area on Sept. 21, combines 200 data streams, including weather, flight paths and controller staffing, to anticipate congestion. It supports planning alongside existing systems and does not control aircraft. Air Space Intelligence, the company behind it, said the ground stop was not based on or caused by SMART or any of its products. Officials have identified no connection.

On Capitol Hill, the reactions split along familiar lines but landed on the same subject. The Senate Commerce Committee, led by Texas Republican Ted Cruz, said the incident showed the need to prioritize modernizing the ARTCCs, noting that no new one has been built since LBJ was in office. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, said she would demand answers and that the safety of the skies rests on redundancies. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the committee's top Democrat, said her panel would review how planes communicate through primary and backup frequencies.

The precedent is the January 2023 nationwide ground stop, when contractors accidentally deleted a file and the error synchronized to the backup database, disabling both. The FAA then added a one-hour delay between database updates. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said on Sept. 29, 2025, that a new NOTAM service had been built from the ground up and was resilient.

For travelers, the cost was immediate. Paul Tompkins, who came from Vancouver, British Columbia, for the WTA Finals in Indian Wells, already faced a four-hour delay that would have cost him a San Francisco connection. He planned an Uber to Los Angeles, a night with relatives and a Saturday direct flight home. In Nashville, Alex Babak, with five children and a wife waiting in Seattle, weighed renting a car but said he trusted the country's technology. Elizabeth Johnson, bound for Detroit via Denver, expected to miss her sister's bridal shower. Airlines for America said carriers were in close contact with the FAA and urged travelers to check with their airline. Cancelled passengers are owed a refund or free rebooking, but no other compensation is required for ground-stop disruptions.

What remains is the cause. Officials have called it a telecommunications outage, not an attack, while declining to rule out other explanations, and Senate committees have said they will look into it.