FAA Orders Ground Stop For All Flights Across The U.S. (Updated)
The FAA has made the very rare move of halting all flights across the country. The agency announced that communications issues are to blame.
“The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following communication issues impacting multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers,” the agency said in a statement. “FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide updates.”
The @FAAnews issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers. FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them.
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) November 13, 2026
Nationwide ground stops are extremely rare.
The last time this happened was January of 2023 due to problems with the pilot alert system. The only other time this happened was during the September 11th attacks.
In January 2023, the FAA halted flights because of issues with a pilot alert system. Before that, traffic was halted nationwide after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
It is unclear if the issue was due to an internal glitch or from an external action.
This is a developing story. We will update it as we find out more.
UPDATE: 4:53pm EST —
CNN is reporting that initial indications point to this not being a cyber attack, based on officials that talked to the network. We have to stress this is based on preliminary information from their sources and it could change. CNN writes:
“Preliminary reports indicate this is not a cyberattack, according to two law enforcement officials. FBI personnel across the country are continuing to monitor the situation, according to another law enforcement source.”
There are changes occurring across the FAA’s air traffic control system in attempts to overhaul and modernize it. This includes the use of AI to help improve the efficiency of flights criss-crossing the skies. A report from Arstechnica just yesterday highlighted the wider deployment of AI to air traffic control centers after a successful test period in Washington, D.C. The story states:
“After a successful initial rollout to the National Capital Region in September, the FAA will now use SMART in the airspace of all 22 centers across the country to reduce delays, reduce fuel consumption and improve the travel experience for the flying public,” according to the agency statement posted on November 10.
UPDATE: 5:11PM EST—
The issue appears to be primarily impacting ARTCCs (Air Route Traffic Control Centers). These regional centers coordinate all the movements of flights across the country. This fits with what we are seeing.
The issue seems to be stemming from the ARTCCs. These are, in lamens terms, facilities that manage aircraft traveling between airports and primarily guide pilots along their routes to maintain safe separation between planes.
FAA orders nationwide grounding of passenger planes…
— Oriana Pawlyk (@Oriana0214) November 13, 2026
In a presser, Secretary Mullin basically says everything is on the table and nothing is ruled out.
Q: Could this be AI related?
Mullin: We call it SI around here. pic.twitter.com/D0HpFyLocH
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 13, 2026
From the presser:
Mullin: Just to make sure we understand, there is no indication, and we had no reason to believe as of right now that this was a threat to the United States. This was a telecommunication outage throughout the FAA. Now, out of abundance of caution, we have grounded all the flights, and and all the flights are accounted for as incoming flights, either internationally or the flights that are currently still in the air, we’ll be dealing with those case by case. As you can imagine, there will be a priority list as they start coming in…
…
My understanding is that we can still communicate. It’s just that it’s at different levels in the clarity that we can get to. But there’s redundancy in most communications. So, as you can see, there’s still planes landing, and so there’s still communications going on.
…
It’s going to take some time, and so this isn’t going to just be resolved and turned around within the hour. This is this is going to take take some time. But once again, everybody is safe. The flights are accounted for, and there’s no there should be no fear to the public at all.
Contact the author: howard@twz.com
The post FAA Orders Ground Stop For All Flights Across The U.S. (Updated) appeared first on TWZ.
Source: www.twz.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.