FAA Ground Stop Halts U.S. Flights for Hours

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide ground stop on Friday afternoon, November 13, 2026, after communication issues affected multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers, according to an FAA statement. The directive, issued at about 3:54 p.m. ET, required all departing aircraft to remain on the ground until further notice. The FAA lifted the stop at 8:15 p.m. ET, more than four hours after it began.

What Happened

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters at a White House press briefing that the outage began at 3:36 p.m. ET, when the FAA experienced "instability" in radar and communications systems at centers and TRACONs across the country. He attributed the failure to an "incredibly old air traffic control system" whose routers became overloaded with data, producing "inconsistency in the data" that forced the FAA to shut the system down out of an abundance of caution.

"Our switches, our routers, actually got overloaded with data ... and started to give us inconsistency in the data from those routers. And because of that, we shut the system down."

Duffy noted that all of the newer equipment the FAA had installed remained operational during the incident, and that the problem stemmed from legacy infrastructure using copper lines dating back decades.

No Cyberattack, Officials Say

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was "no indication" of a cyberattack and no evidence that any flights or passengers were ever in danger. "The public was never at danger through this process," Mullin said. The FAA's technicians are investigating the root cause, and the agency has said the information remains preliminary and subject to change.

Impact on Travelers

The ground stop disrupted more than 10,000 scheduled flights, with roughly 600 diverted and thousands more delayed or canceled, according to flight-data firm Cirium, as reported by CNBC. Airports from coast to coast were packed with stranded passengers, and airlines including United and JetBlue canceled most of their remaining Friday flights. The FAA said international flights were being handled on a case-by-case basis.

By Friday evening, some flights had begun departing again, including international departures from coastal hubs, but the FAA warned that delays and cancellations would stretch into the weekend as airlines repositioned crews and aircraft.

A Rare Event

Nationwide ground stops are extremely rare. The last one before Friday occurred in January 2023, when a failure of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system halted flights nationwide. The only other nationwide stop in U.S. history came on September 11, 2001, as NPR noted.

Duffy Calls for Funding

At the press briefing, Duffy called the situation an "emergency" and urged Congress to provide $50 billion for a complete overhaul of the air traffic control system. "You will have more of these" unless the system is upgraded, he warned, adding that flying would continue to become "less safe" without modernization. He said the FAA is already in the middle of a multi-billion-dollar overhaul of the technology.

What Is a Ground Stop?

A ground stop is a traffic management initiative issued by the FAA that requires all aircraft meeting specific criteria to remain on the ground, taking precedence over other initiatives. The FAA issues ground stops when air traffic control cannot safely accommodate aircraft in a particular airspace or airport, such as during severe weather, security threats, or equipment outages. They typically come with little warning and are usually a reaction to an unfolding event.

What's Next

The FAA said its technicians are investigating the issue and that it will provide updates. Duffy said he expects operations to be "back up and operational" heading into the Thanksgiving travel period, but acknowledged it would take time to unwind the disruptions. The agency's advisory listed an effective period extending to 11:30 p.m. ET, though flights were instructed to remain grounded until further notice.