US Flights Have Been Grounded Nationwide
The rare ground stop does not apply to flights that are already airborne, according to United Airlines.
The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a rare nationwide ground stop Friday afternoon, with all outbound flights from the US being directed to halt ground operations. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin stated in a press conference that there was “no indication as of yet” that anything “nefarious” caused the ground stop, and suggested that it due to a broad was a telecommunications outage.
“There has been a temporary telecommunications outage - out of an abundance of caution all flights have been halted,” the FAA said in a statement on X . “Every flight has been accounted for and international flights will be handled on a case by case basis.”
Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement that the ground stop was due to a "communication issue" and that “FAA technicians are investigating.”
The halt on take offs and landing is in place for both domestic and international flights operating within the US. United Airlines, one of the four largest airlines in the nation, said that the order did not apply to in-transit aircraft: “United Airlines is responding to a nationwide ground stop issued by the FAA. United flights that are already airborne will continue. New domestic flights will not depart while the FAA ground stop remains in place,” United Airlines said in a press release. “United will work with our customers to get them to their destinations once this issue is resolved.”
The last time a nationwide ground stop occurred in the US was in January 2023 following a computer outage in the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) pilot notification system (NOTAM).
CNBC reported that the widespread server outages affecting telecommunications over the past 24 hours were to blame, citing internal information from Alaska Airlines. According to Cirium, an aviation analytics company, there are 26,284 flights scheduled to depart on November 13 from the US. As of 5:50 p.m., 600 flights have been diverted so far, with 496 of those 600 flights (82.7%) returning to their origin airport and the other 104 diverting to a different airport. “At this time 481 have been canceled or no fly nationally, representing 1.83%. This will grow today,” a company spokesperson said. “After 4 p.m. Eastern time today, there were still some 11,000 flight scheduled to depart from US airports today.”
