Communication outage grounds U.S. departures

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed a nationwide ground stop after a communication outage affected all air traffic control centers in the country on Friday (13/11) local time. As a result, all flights scheduled to depart from U.S. airports were held on the ground until further notice, while incoming international flights were handled on a case-by-case basis. The FAA described the outage as a temporary telecommunications problem, and technicians were still investigating it. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said there was no indication of an attack. At several airports, passengers were left confused because information boards still showed normal schedules even though they could not board their flights. According to an FAA notice cited by Antara, the restriction took effect at 20.53 GMT.