FAA grounds all US domestic flights after systemwide communications failure

The Federal Aviation Administration halted all domestic flights across the United States following a widespread communications breakdown. The nationwide ground stopGround stopAn order that requires planes to stay on the ground at airports. Open in glossary was ordered by the Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Northern Virginia, which oversees US flight traffic flow and risk mitigation.

The Command Center sent the order to all 22 regional air traffic control centers, citing extraordinary circumstances and safety needs. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed that a communication glitch affected all Air Route Traffic Control Centers, adding that agency technicians are actively investigating the disruption.

Network crash and flight chaos

While government officials have shared few technical details, reports indicate that the failure struck a private communications network linking various components of the air traffic system. Sources indicated that a software update triggered a network reboot, which ultimately crashed the system.

The disruption began at 3:54 p.m. EST and quickly disrupted national travel. Over 13,000 flights have faced cancellations or delays. American Airlines noted that flights already in the air would continue to their destinations, though the carrier expects delays to persist all day. Across the Atlantic, European air traffic agency Eurocontrol halted flights to the US at the FAA’s request. Regulators stated that incoming international flights will be handled case by case.

Mounting infrastructure strains

The ground stop comes shortly after the agency revealed on Tuesday that it was widening the deployment of SMART, an artificial intelligence platform. That tool examines weather trends, flight routes, and operational metrics to recommend schedule changes that save fuel and minimize delays.

This is the agency’s first systemwide ground stop since January 2023, when a failure in the Notice to Air Missions system halted operations for roughly two hours and disrupted 9,500 flights. The current incident has already exceeded that duration and disrupted more travel schedules.