FAA halts departures at every U.S. airport after an air traffic communications outage; DHS says no sign of a "nefarious attack"

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop for departing flights on Friday, November 13, halting takeoffs at every U.S. airport. The FAA's Air Traffic Control System Command Center issued the order at about 3:54 p.m. Eastern, Gizmodo reported, "due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety." The advisory said departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice and that inbound international flights would be handled case by case, according to Newsweek.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X that the stop followed "a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers," the facilities that manage high-altitude traffic across the country, and that FAA technicians are investigating. Before the national order, airports including Chicago O'Hare and Midway had been stopped over equipment and communications problems, and the FAA reported serious air traffic control communications issues at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, ABC News reported.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin described the incident as a "telecommunications outage" and said there was no indication of a "nefarious attack," according to ABC News. No agency has confirmed a cause, and no official has said the outage was a hack.

In a post on X, the FAA said: "There has been a temporary telecommunications outage - out of an abundance of caution all flights have been halted." Mullin said officials "just can't rule anything out at this point" and gave no timeline for lifting the stop, Fox Weather reported. Some airborne flights were allowed to land about an hour after the stop took effect.

As of 5:45 p.m. Eastern, more than 1,300 flights had been canceled and more than 10,300 delayed, according to Fox Weather. About 3,000 flights were in the air when the stop was ordered.

Some departures have begun to resume. San Francisco International Airport said Pacific-bound flights, including to Hawaii and Asia, were cleared to depart just after 3 p.m. local time, and some eastbound transatlantic flights were approved, Travel Market Report reported, while most of the country remained under the stop. Later FlightAware figures cited by the outlet put cancellations at about 5,600 and delays at about 10,000, with disruption expected to last into Saturday as airlines reposition planes and crews. Later Friday evening, CNBC, CNN and NBC News reported that the FAA had lifted the nationwide ground stop, which CNBC said lasted about four hours, and that cancellations would stretch into the weekend. No agency has confirmed a cause beyond the telecommunications outage. A nationwide ground stop is rare: the FAA last issued one in January 2023, after a failure of its pilot alert system.

The AI and crypto angle

The outage hit the same 22 en route centers where the FAA had just finished rolling out an AI planning tool. On Tuesday, November 10, the agency told FLYING that SMART (Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories) was active in all 22 Air Route Traffic Control Centers. The tool pulls in more than 200 data streams, including weather, flight paths, traffic volumes and controller staffing, to recommend reroutes before congestion builds, according to FLYING and AeroTime. The FAA said it had rerouted 180 flights in the Washington area, saving an average of 10 minutes and nearly 80 gallons of fuel per flight.

No official has linked SMART to Friday's outage. The FAA has described the cause as a temporary telecommunications outage, and Mullin said officials "just can't rule anything out at this point," Fox Weather reported. Cryptoweek found no statement from the FAA, the Transportation Department or DHS identifying an AI system or a cyberattack as the cause.

Crypto markets, which trade around the clock, were already under pressure before the stop. Bitcoin fell to $68,408 at 12:10 a.m. Eastern on Friday, its lowest since August 20 and down 7% in 24 hours, The Block reported, citing Nvidia's leadership change and expectations of another Federal Reserve rate hike. That move came nearly 16 hours before the ground stop, and no source has tied the two.

This is a developing story and will be updated.