FAA Grounds All Departing Flights Nationwide After Air Traffic Control Communications Failure

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop on Friday, halting every departing flight in the United States after a communications failure struck the air traffic control centres that guide aircraft between airports.

The order, issued by the FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center at 3:54 p.m. Eastern, told all airports to keep departing traffic on the ground “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety” and “until further notice”. Flights already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations, while inbound international flights were to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

It is only the third time the United States has grounded all departures nationwide, after the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the failure of the FAA’s flight safety notice system in January 2023.

A failure across every control centre

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the scale of the problem shortly after the order went out. “The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers,” Duffy said. “FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them.”

The 22 Air Route Traffic Control Centers manage high-altitude airspace across the country, handing aircraft from one region to the next. The FAA said the communications problem affected multiple centres but did not identify the equipment involved or explain how the failure developed.

Early reports pointed to problems beginning at around 3:30 p.m. Eastern at the FAA’s Kansas City centre, after equipment outages had already been reported at Chicago O’Hare, Chicago Midway and Newark. Flight-tracking service Flightradar24 and Canadian air traffic control linked the disruption to an FAA radio outage, and the National Weather Service also reported a national radar outage.

Thousands of flights disrupted

At 4:19 p.m. Eastern, Flightradar24 said about 3,100 aircraft were airborne and bound for U.S. airports, while no additional aircraft were taking off. Departure boards at major hubs including Atlanta, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth, Los Angeles and New York’s John F. Kennedy airport filled with delays as aircraft sat at gates and on taxiways.

The FAA’s advisory listed an end time of 11 p.m. Eastern, but the order itself keeps departures grounded until further notice, and the agency gave no estimate for when normal operations would resume. Even after departures restart, airlines and airports face a cascade of cancellations and delays stretching into the weekend as aircraft and crews are out of position.

The stop came a week after the White House sought $30.1 billion for aviation upgrades, and days after the FAA had already ordered flight cuts at 40 airports during the government shutdown, when air traffic control staffing was under strain.

What travellers should do

Passengers due to fly on Friday evening were urged to check with their airline before travelling to the airport. A ground stop holds aircraft at their departure point; it does not automatically cancel a flight, and airlines decide individually whether delayed flights are rescheduled or cancelled.

The FAA’s National Airspace System Status page carries live updates on airport conditions, and airlines were rebooking affected passengers as the disruption continued.

Cause still unknown

As of Friday evening, neither the FAA nor the Transportation Department had confirmed what caused the communications failure, and there was no official word on whether the nationwide stop had been lifted. The agency said technicians were investigating and promised immediate updates.

The episode is likely to renew questions about the resilience of the air traffic control system, which relies on ageing communications infrastructure. For now, the immediate concern is clearing the backlog: thousands of passengers stranded at airports across the country, with no confirmed time for the first departures to resume.