FAA Grounds All US Flights Over Air Traffic Control Outage

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered a nationwide grounding of departing flights across the United States following a communication outage affecting air traffic control centres and radar capabilities.

The agency announced the restriction on Friday, saying it was taking the measure “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety” until further notice, according to NBC News and CNN.

The ground stop was reportedly triggered by disruptions to air traffic control frequencies and radar capabilities, with the FAA command centre telling airlines it had no immediate information on the cause or duration of the outage.

The FAA directed inquiries to a statement by US Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, on X, in which he said the restriction followed a communication issue affecting all Air Route Traffic Control Centres.

“FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them,” Duffy said.

Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication that the outage was caused by a threat to the United States.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Mullin said, “There is no indication that we’ve had, no reason to believe, that as of right now this was a threat to the United States.”

He later described the incident as a telecommunications outage, according to CNN.

Flight tracking website FlightAware reported more than 9,000 delayed flights within, into or out of the United States, while 440 flights had been cancelled as of 5:20 p.m. Eastern Time.

The FAA said every flight had been accounted for, adding that international flights would be handled on a case-by-case basis.