In an extraordinarily rare move, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that all flights in the U.S. are grounded on Friday afternoon.
The FAA said this nationwide ground stop was “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.”
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy posted a confirmation of the outage on his X account, attributing the ground stop order to “a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.” Duffy added, “FAA technicians are investigating the issue.”
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The FAA has only ordered the grounding of all flights nationwide on two prior occasions. The first was on 9/11, and the second was on Jan. 11, 2023, when all flights were grounded for 90 minutes due to problems with the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system. In 2024, the CrowdStrike IT outage led some major airlines to issue a global stoppage.
“The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following communication issues impacting multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers,” the FAA said in a statement. “All departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice,” read an air traffic control advisory reported by Axios.
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How to check the status of your flight
For those preparing to board a flight, this will obviously cause delays.
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Travelers who need to monitor the status of their air travel should make sure to turn on notifications with their airline in order to receive up-to-the-minute updates regarding their specific flights.
To check the status of flights online, you can use the following resources:
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Flighty: An iOS app that uses FAA air traffic control data to track flights
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FlightAware: A website and app (Android and iOS) that provides live tracking for flights
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Misery Map: A FlightAware map showing cancellations and delays around the country
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Flightradar24: Another live radar map available through a website and app (Android and iOS)
As of this writing, the Misery Map shows 2,438 delays and counting.
The FAA also provides broad status updates regarding active airport events on its National Airspace System Status website located at https://nasstatus.faa.gov/.
Flyers can also check the social media profiles and websites of specific airports for local updates.
This is a developing story…
