WASHINGTON: US air travel resumed following a nationwide ground stop ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) due to critical air traffic control communication failures. The disruption left hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded and resulted in the cancellation of nearly 6,000 flights, according to tracking data from FlightAware.
US Flight Departures Resume Nationwide After Four-Hour Ground Stop
The sweeping nationwide ground stop in the United States lasted approximately four hours before being officially lifted at 8:15 pm Eastern Time (0115 GMT Saturday). The rare suspension halted all domestic flight departures across the country, while international flights were handled on a case-by-case basis. This marked only the second time since the September 11, 2001 attacks that the United States had imposed a nationwide halt on departing flights, following a brief two-hour suspension in January 2023.
Official Briefing and Security Assessment
Addressing reporters during a joint press briefing, US Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin stated that preliminary investigations revealed no evidence of a malicious cyberattack or threat to public safety.
“There is no indication, so far, that this is a malicious attack against us; it is merely a communication outage,” Mullin said, noting that officials are nonetheless keeping all investigative possibilities open. He also explicitly ruled out any connection to global email disruptions caused by previous Microsoft outages.
Infrastructure Vulnerabilities and Funding Requests
US Transport Secretary Shawn Duffy attributed the unprecedented system failure to aging infrastructure, pointing to outdated legacy hardware within air traffic control facilities.
“This is a legacy system problem,” Duffy explained. “We have old, old switches, old routers. We use 1980s copper lines. It’s an old system that went down, and went down everywhere.”
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Following the incident, transport officials reiterated urgent calls for modernization funding. While Congress approved $12.5 billion last year to update aging FAA communication networks, the FAA and the White House formally requested an additional $30.1 billion from Congress to comprehensively address national aviation infrastructure vulnerabilities.
