Thousands of flights have been disrupted across the United States after federal aviation officials ordered an immediate nationwide ground stop due to a major communication failure affecting regional air traffic control centres, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed on Friday.
In an urgent directive issued late on Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) halted all departing flights nationwide, citing “extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety”.
The agency instructed operators that all departing traffic must remain grounded until further notice, while inbound international flights are being managed on a case-by-case basis.
Duffy stated that the disruption stems from a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers—the regional facilities responsible for directing aircraft between airports across the country.
“FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them,” Duffy said.
Flight-tracking service Flightradar24 reported that approximately 3,100 airborne aircraft were bound for US airports at the time of the halt, with no further departures taking off.
Major hubs across the country—including Atlanta, Los Angeles (LAX), New York’s JFK, Washington’s Reagan National, Miami, Houston, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and Baltimore—confirmed the ground stop and urged travellers to check directly with airlines.
At airports including Los Angeles and Austin, passengers reported being held on stationary aircraft on the tarmac as grounded departure planes blocked terminal gates, according to the BBC.
Countrywide ground stops are exceptionally rare in the United States.
Prior to Friday’s shutdown, the last countrywide halt occurred in January 2023 following an outage of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) pilot notification system, and before that in the immediate aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks.
Local authorities have not yet indicated when normal flight operations will resume.
(With information from thr BBC and PBS)
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