The Federal Aviation Administration ordered all airports across the U.S. to halt departures Friday, citing “extraordinary circumstances” and safety reasons for its decision.
Key Facts
The advisory issued around 4 p.m. EST said “all departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice” and that “inbound international flights will be managed on a case by case basis.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement the ground stop was ordered after a “communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.”
Over 6,500 flight delays have been reported across the U.S. so far Friday alongside more than 300 cancellations.
Preliminary reports indicate Friday’s disruptions are not due to a cyber attack, according to CNN.
The National Weather Service said Friday afternoon it was “aware of a National Radar Outage on radar.weather.gov,” though it is unclear if the outage was linked to the FAA’s decision to ground flights.
Forbes has reached out to the FAA for comment.
Tangent
Though they do not appear to be related, the communication issues come as Microsoft 365, which includes the emailing platform Outlook, continued facing service disruptions Friday. Microsoft said Friday afternoon it did not have an ETA for full recovery, shooting down speculation the problems were due to a cyber attack or internal artificial intelligence issues.
Key Background
The last time a national ground stop was ordered was in 2023, when a database maintenance error crashed the Notice to Air Missions pilot alert system. The disruption lasted for roughly 12 hours and marked the first nationwide ground stop since after the Sept. 11 attacks. More than 1,000 flights were cancelled.
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