FAA grounds all departing flights across the US after communications outage hits air traffic control centers nationwide

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded all departing flights nationwide on the afternoon of Friday, November 13, 2026, after a communications failure hit the air traffic control centers that guide aircraft between airports.

An FAA notice said the ground stop was imposed “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety” and that “all departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice.” Inbound international flights would be “managed on a case by case basis,” the agency said, according to NBC News.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the order followed “a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers,” and that FAA technicians were investigating, Reuters reported. There are 22 of these regional centers, which direct planes en route between airports, AP reported.

In a later social media post, the FAA said there had been “a temporary telecommunications outage” and that “out of an abundance of caution all flights have been halted. Every flight has been accounted for,” CBS New York reported.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters at the White House there was no indication yet that “this was a nefarious attack against us,” and said there was no timeline for restarting flights, AP reported. He told reporters the issue had no connection to an ongoing Microsoft outage, according to the BBC. AP’s live coverage reported that the order runs through at least 11 p.m. ET on Friday.

Scale

Shortly before the nationwide order, Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports had been placed under ground stops for an “equipment outage,” the Financial Times reported. Airports in Atlanta, Washington, Miami, Baltimore and Houston confirmed the halt, the BBC reported, and flights could not take off from Newark, JFK or LaGuardia, according to CBS New York.

When the order was issued, more than 3 000 airborne flights were bound for US airports, according to Flightradar24 data cited by the FT. Flight tracking service FlightAware said nearly 7 000 flights had been delayed or cancelled, Reuters reported.

The FAA’s Air Traffic Organization handles more than 44 000 flights and more than 3 million airline passengers a day, the FT reported. Passengers at Los Angeles and Austin who had just landed told CBS News they were being held on board because aircraft could not reach gates, the BBC reported.

Canada’s air navigation provider NAV Canada said there was no impact on Canadian operations, DW reported.

Rare event

It is only the second nationwide halt of all departures since the September 11, 2001, attacks. The previous one, in January 2023, followed a failure of a key FAA computer system and paused domestic departures for less than two hours, according to Reuters and AP.

Disruption from ground stops can last for days when aircraft and crews end up out of position, the FT reported.

Travellers are being advised by airports to check flight status directly with their airline.

Featured image: An American Airlines Airbus A321neo at a gate at Chicago O’Hare International Airport in June 2025. File photo: 4300streetcar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0