WASHINGTON, D.C. / MENA Newswire / – The US Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop on Friday, suspending departures from all US airports after a communications outage hit air traffic control centres. The FAA said the order was issued because of a communications problem affecting its Air Route Traffic Control Centers, which handle flights crossing the country. Its technicians investigated the disruption as thousands of travellers were stranded. The halt took effect at 3:54 p.m. Eastern Time.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the communications issue prompted the nationwide ground stop. He said incoming international flights would be handled on a case-by-case basis. Aircraft already in the air were allowed to continue to their destinations and land. The ground stop was the second nationwide halt of all departures since the September 11, 2001, attacks. The FAA cited extraordinary circumstances and reasons for safety in issuing the order.
The airspace reopened at 8:15 p.m. ET, after more than four hours of disruption. Duffy warned that flights would not resume immediately and that the restart would be slow. He said departures would depend on the availability of pilots and flight attendants. Passengers were urged to check their flight status with airlines. An earlier technology failure grounded flights and hit services worldwide, showing how much aviation relies on digital systems.
Overloaded switches and routers blamed
Duffy said switches and routers became overloaded with data and went down. He said the incident did not involve a total loss of communications or radar. He described an old system that relies on 1980s copper lines and called on Congress to provide $50 billion to modernize air traffic control. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no evidence of a cyberattack. He said the public was never in danger.
A Government Accountability Office report published in September had warned about aging copper cables dating back to the 1960s. It said delays in modernizing the system could lead to further disruptions. Officials said on Friday that new technology being added to the air traffic control system had overloaded older parts of it. That caused intermittent gaps in communications and radar coverage, they said. Duffy did not rule out another outage in the future.
Thousands of flights cancelled or delayed
More than 4,700 flights were cancelled and 10,000 delayed on Friday, according to FlightRadar24. Another 700 flights had already been cancelled for Saturday. Aviation analytics firm Cirium said about 11,000 flights carrying more than 1.5 million passengers were still scheduled to leave US airports after 4 p.m. ET. By 7:05 p.m., at least 827 flights had been diverted, including 670 that returned to their departure airports.
Mullin said about 3,000 flights landed safely after the order was issued. Analysts said it could take days for airlines to restore their schedules, as many passengers connect through major hubs. Duffy said operations should be back to normal before the Thanksgiving travel rush, which begins in less than two weeks. Demand for air travel has stayed strong, with the global load factor reaching a new high of 86% last year.