FAA Lifts Nationwide Ground Stop After Hours-Long Telecom Failure

Flights began leaving major U.S. airports late Friday after the Federal Aviation Administration lifted a nationwide ground stop triggered by a major telecommunications failure.

The rare shutdown lasted more than four hours, grounding departures across the country and leaving thousands of passengers stranded as airlines scrambled to reposition planes and crews.

Flights gradually resumed after the FAA lifted the order around 8:15 p.m. ET, with departures restarting at New York's LaGuardia, Los Angeles International, Reagan National outside Washington and airports around San Francisco.

"The FAA lifted the ground stop and some flight departures are resuming," the agency said. "Before clearing flights to resume, we thoroughly tested our systems to confirm they were stable and that operations remain reliable."

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What Went Wrong

The trouble began Friday afternoon when communications problems hit the FAA's Air Route Traffic Control Centers, which oversee aircraft across large sections of U.S. airspace.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the problems involved instability in the nation's aging air traffic control infrastructure. Officials said technology upgrades being installed overloaded older equipment, producing intermittent communications and radar problems.

"We didn't lose all telecom. We didn't lose all radar," Duffy said. "But that instability, because of abundance of caution and making sure we keep the American flier safe, we did the ground stop."

The Transportation Department's rapid response account, however, said the outage was "NOT caused by new technology deployments" and blamed the outdated legacy analog telecom system, urging Congress to pass the Modern Skies Act.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no evidence of terrorism or a cyberattack. "There is no indication and we have no reason to believe, as of right now, that this was a threat to the United States," he said. "This was a telecommunication outage throughout FAA."

More Than 15,000 Flights Hit

Administration officials said more than 3,000 airborne flights were landed safely during the disruption. About 600 flights were diverted, and more than 15,000 were affected overall, according to flight-tracking data cited by Fox News.

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American Airlines said it was focused on running as many remaining flights as possible Friday night while positioning planes and crews for Saturday. Southwest said it would resume a limited number of flights after consulting with the FAA.

It was the longest nationwide ground stop since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, though the circumstances were very different. The FAA also imposed a nationwide stop in January 2023 after a system that distributes safety notices to pilots malfunctioned.

Problems Continue

The trouble carried into Saturday. More than 2,000 flights had already been canceled by morning as airlines worked to recover from misplaced aircraft and crews, and carriers warned delays could continue through the weekend.

Duffy warned that more failures in the aging system remain possible. "This is all the old legacy equipment," he said. "All of the new equipment that's been deployed did not go down." For stranded passengers, Friday night's reopening brought the first real relief after hours of uncertainty.

Congress previously approved $12.5 billion for air traffic control modernization, and the Trump administration is seeking another $30 billion to speed up the replacement of aging equipment.