The FAA Just Grounded Every Departing Flight in America — and Officials Still Haven’t Said What Broke

Developing story. Last updated 5:05 p.m. ET (23:05 CET), Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. As of that time, the FAA had not announced that the ground stop was lifted.

At 3:54 p.m. Eastern on a busy Friday afternoon, the order went out to every airport in the United States: nothing leaves the ground.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s advisory was blunt. All airports were ground stopped “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” and “all departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice.” Planes already in the air could keep flying and land. Everything else, from regional jets in Oklahoma City to wide-bodies in Atlanta, stayed parked at the gate.

What broke is still a mystery. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the trouble was “a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers,” the regional hubs that steer planes between airports across the country. Beyond that, officials have said almost nothing, and every hour without an answer pushes the backlog deeper into the weekend.

It Started in Chicago

The first sign of trouble came out of the Midwest. Shortly before the nationwide order, the FAA halted traffic in Chicago because of air traffic control communications problems, Reuters reported. Within minutes, the problem was no longer Chicago’s alone.

“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.” It added that its information was preliminary and subject to change.

Duffy posted the same message on X, promising “immediate updates as we have them.” According to the Associated Press, he said the problem was affecting the 22 regional centers that direct planes en route between airports nationwide.

Other clues came from outside the government. An internal Alaska Airlines message seen by CNBC described the problems as communications and radar issues. Flight-tracking company Flightradar24 said the order followed an equipment outage, and the FAA’s own advisory cited frequency issues across the National Airspace System, USA Today reported.

Stuck on the Tarmac

On the ground, the ripple effect arrived fast. As of about 4:30 p.m., more than 500 flights at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport were already delayed, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, citing FlightAware.

Across the country, the numbers stacked up even faster. By roughly 4:45 p.m. Eastern, FlightAware was reporting 7,884 delays and 340 cancellations involving flights within, into or out of the United States, according to News9 in Oklahoma City. Reuters put the number of delayed or canceled U.S. flights at nearly 7,000, USA Today reported. Those totals were climbing by the minute.

Some travelers were caught in the strangest spot of all: already landed, but going nowhere. A passenger who had flown into Los Angeles International Airport from Newark told CBS News, the BBC’s U.S. partner, that their plane could not taxi to the gate because the aircraft scheduled to leave it was not allowed to depart. Another passenger who had just landed in Austin said everyone on board had been told to “sit tight.”

Meanwhile, Flightradar24 said about 3,100 airborne aircraft were bound for U.S. airports, and that no additional aircraft were taking off. International flights heading to the U.S. are being handled “on a case-by-case basis,” the FAA said.

What Airlines and Airports Are Telling Passengers

Airlines scrambled to explain a problem they did not control. “United flights that are already airborne will continue,” United Airlines said in a statement. “New domestic flights will not depart while the FAA ground stop remains in place. United will work with our customers to get them to their destinations once this issue is resolved.”

Airports from Atlanta and Miami to Washington’s Reagan National, BWI and Houston posted similar warnings. “All departing flights at HOU are being held until further notice from the FAA,” Houston’s Hobby Airport said. “Passengers should check their flight status directly with their airline.”

At Hollywood Burbank Airport, spokesperson Mike Christensen said staff got the notice just before 1 p.m. local time and knew little beyond that it was “due to some kind of equipment outage.”

“Right now, there’s going to be delays, but then even this afternoon … things can get backed up,” he told The Desert Sun.

If you’re flying tonight or tomorrow, the practical advice is the same everywhere:

• Check your flight status in your airline’s app or website before heading to the airport.
• A ground stop does not automatically mean your flight is canceled. It means it can’t leave yet.
• Expect knock-on delays and missed connections even after flights restart, as planes and crews end up in the wrong places.

Even Lawmakers Are in the Dark

The silence has reached Capitol Hill. Punchbowl News congressional reporter Jake Sherman wrote on X that even “key lawmakers are in the dark at the moment about the ground stop.”

The FAA’s advisory lists an estimated end time of 11 p.m. Eastern (10 p.m. Central), with an effective period running to 11:30 p.m. Eastern. But the same notice says departures stay grounded until further notice, so that time is a target, not a promise. As of 5:05 p.m. Eastern, the agency had given no firm estimate for when normal operations would return, and it had not said what caused the failure. Officials have not publicly blamed a cyberattack or any outside interference.

This Has Happened Once Before

Nationwide ground stops of this kind are extremely rare. The Washington Post and CNBC note that Friday’s is only the second since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The other came on Jan. 11, 2023, when the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions system, which sends pilots safety information about hazards such as runway closures, failed overnight. The FAA later said contract workers had “unintentionally deleted files” while trying to sync a main database with its backup, and that it found no evidence of a cyberattack. That stop lasted under two hours, yet it still disrupted more than 11,000 flights, Reuters reported.

This time the failure sits at the heart of the system: the centers that talk to planes as they cross the country. It comes as the government works to overhaul the aging technology controllers rely on, after Congress approved $12.5 billion for the project last year, the AP reported. Miles of old copper wiring have already been swapped for fiber-optic lines, and old radio systems are being replaced airport by airport.

For thousands of travelers sitting at gates tonight, the only question that matters is when the order lifts. The FAA says it will tell them as soon as it knows. Until then, the departures boards keep filling with one word: delayed.