FAA Issues Nationwide Ground Stop Citing Extraordinary Circumstances
The FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop on all departing flights at U.S. airports on Friday, citing extraordinary circumstances and safety, with no cause or resume time given.
Newsnibs Staff
- 2026-11-13
- Updated 10:20 PM UTC
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop on all departing flights at U.S. airports on Friday. It gave no cause and no time for flights to resume. The agency said the order was issued "due to extraordinary circumstance and reasons for safety" and that "all departing traffic should remain groundstopped until further notice."
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy attributed the disruption to a communication issue affecting the Air Route Traffic Control Centers, which direct aircraft between airports. He said FAA technicians are investigating. Accounts of his remarks differ on whether the problem touches every one of those centers or only regional ones. The FAA's Air Traffic Control System Command Center issued the instruction keeping departures on the ground.
Flights already in the air are being allowed to continue to their destinations. Inbound international flights are being handled case by case. Grounded departures include Los Angeles International Airport and other airports in the Los Angeles area, Philadelphia International, and Lehigh Valley International in Pennsylvania. In Arizona, Phoenix Sky Harbor, Mesa Gateway, Scottsdale Airport and Flagstaff Pulliam were also held.
Chicago's O'Hare International and Midway International airports were already under a ground stop before the nationwide order. That stop was caused by a separate equipment outage.
A nationwide ground stop is rare. The last one came in January 2023 and was attributed to a failure in a key FAA computer system. Before that, the only nationwide ground stop followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Photo by Joseph Bobadilla on Unsplash
