FAA Orders Nationwide Ground Stop For All Departing Flights Over ATC Frequency Issues
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UPDATE: The FAA has lifted the nationwide ground stop on air traffic.
An update to the FAA’s private communications network caused the system to reboot and crash, triggering an air traffic control communications outage, CBS News reports. The network is operated by L3Harris.
The FAA was in the process of rolling out SMART, its $875 million AI air traffic tool, across the airspace of all 22 regional control centers when the nationwide ground stop hit.
Nearly 7,000 US flights delayed, cancelled due to nationwide ground stop, FlightAware reports. The nationwide ground stop in the U.S. will reportedly remain in effect until 10 p.m. CT.
WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration today issued a nationwide ground stop for all departing flights at all U.S. airports due to “extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety” relating to Air Traffic Control (ATC) frequency and/or radar system impacts. The FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center issued Advisory 111 (National Ground Stop) at 3:53:49 PM Eastern Time. The ground stop, advised until 11PM Eastern tonight or until advised otherwise, includes the following details: All airports are ground-stopped. All departing traffic remains on ground until further advised by the FAA. Inbound international flights will be handled on a case by case basis until further advised by the FAA.
The FAA, in a call with The Air Current, said that several impacts to ATC Frequencies and/or Radar capabilities had caused the system failure and that the FAA’s Command Center had no additional information regarding the circumstances surrounding the failure at this time. Aviation sources call a rolling frequency outage of this nature “unprecedented” in terms of its scope.
Earlier, the FAA implemented airport ground stops in Chicago (both O’Hare and Midway airports) because of various pieces of air traffic control equipment not functioning on time as well as communications NOT functioning and already had created various travel problems at many airports in the country. FAA-imposed travel delays are listed on status boards at airports in Newark, Teterboro, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Houston and Orlando among others. Flying in the Northeast today was already to be complicated by a coastal storm bringing high winds. Meanwhile, San Francisco airport was trying to clear a lengthy backlog of flights.
A nationwide ground stop, like the one currently happening, is extremely rare. One of the most notable examples in recent history was after the 9/11 attacks, when all civilian air traffic was grounded for several days. There has only been one other instance of a nationwide ground stop in recent history, in January 2023 when a problem with the system that sends out NOTAMs (notifications of phenomena that affect navigation and/or safety) caused a 90 minute ground stop of more than 11,000 flights.
Travelers are advised to check with their airline before traveling to the airport, expecting further delays and possible cancellations even after the ground stop has been lifted. So far there is no further information from the FAA on this situation, which is being handled as if there were an air traffic control safety incident. There is no security incident here, said officials.
