FAA issues nationwide ground stop due to "extraordinary circumstances," White House says no indication of "nefarious act"

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a rare nationwide ground stop on all departing flights, citing extraordinary circumstances and safety concerns. Officials described the cause as a telecommunications outage impacting core air traffic control systems.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted that the outage affected all Air Route Traffic Control Centers and that FAA technicians were investigating. The FAA and White House indicated the issue appeared linked to a communications network update that caused a system reboot.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication of a nefarious act, calling it a telecommunication outage. He noted that flights would be grounded as a precaution and that everyone already in the air would be brought down safely.

The ground stop affected departures nationwide, with air traffic control coordinating landings and ground returns on a case-by-case basis. International flights departing the East Coast could fly over the Atlantic, and some southern routes were allowed to depart toward the Gulf and Atlantic, according to sources.

Flight tracking indicated thousands of flights were affected, with hundreds of airports reporting delays and cancellations in several major hubs. The FAA posted the ground stop notice on its National Airspace System Status site as delays accumulated across the country.

Earlier in the day, Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway experienced separate ground stops due to an equipment outage, contributing to the broader nationwide action. The situation prompted a rapid, coordinated response among federal agencies and air traffic control centers.