FAA halts U.S. flights for 4 hours; 10,000 delays, 5,000 canceled
What's new: Officials pointed to aging communications equipment, and Homeland Security said it saw no sign of a cyberattack.
The Federal Aviation Administration lifted a rare nationwide ground stop Friday after a communications failure halted departures across the United States for about four hours. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the outage appeared to stem from outdated technology, describing overloaded switches and routers in the air traffic system. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said officials had found no evidence of a cyberattack. By 8 p.m. EST, FlightAware counted more than 10,000 delays and 5,000 cancellations. The disruption hit the FAA's Air Route Traffic Control Centers, which manage high-altitude traffic around the country. It was the second U.S. shutdown of this scale since Sept. 11, 2001, following a 2023 nationwide stoppage tied to the NOTAM system.