The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop Friday afternoon, halting departures at every airport in the United States after a communications failure hit the centers that control the nation’s high-altitude air traffic.
The FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center issued the order at 3:54 p.m. ET “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” directing that “all departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice.” Inbound international flights will be managed on a case-by-case basis, the advisory said.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the stop followed a communication issue affecting every en route control center. “The @FAAnews issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers,” Duffy wrote. “FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them.”
An FAA spokesperson likewise cited “communication issues impacting multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers” and confirmed technicians are investigating. The agency has not said what caused the outage or when it will be fixed.
Flights already in the air are not being ordered down and will be allowed to land. Flight-tracking service Flightradar24 reported roughly 3,100 aircraft airborne and bound for U.S. airports as the stop took hold, and the FAA’s own airport status feed showed ground-stop departure delays building at major hubs across the country Friday evening.
The advisory’s listed window runs to 11:30 p.m. ET, but the order itself keeps departures grounded until further notice, and the FAA has given no estimate for when normal operations will resume.
The stop covers every Ohio airport, including Columbus, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky, Dayton, Cleveland, Toledo and Akron-Canton.
ABC News reported it is only the third time since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that departures have been halted across the entire country. The last was the January 2023 failure of the FAA’s NOTAM pilot safety-notice system.
LIVE UPDATES
LIVE UPDATE — 4:54 p.m. ET, Nov. 13, 2026: The FAA issued the nationwide ground stop at 3:54 p.m. ET Friday, citing a communication issue impacting its Air Route Traffic Control Centers. FAA technicians are investigating. This story will be updated as the FAA releases more information.
LIVE UPDATE — 6:03 p.m. ET, Nov. 13, 2026: The FAA said in its latest update at 6:02 p.m. ET that the nationwide departure halt remains in effect. The White House posted Homeland Security Secretary Mullin addressing the stop: “Everybody is safe. There is no reason to be concerned about your loved ones if they’re flying.”
LIVE UPDATE — 6:10 p.m. ET, Nov. 13, 2026: The FBI does not suspect a cyberattack or criminal activity behind the outage, according to reports, as investigators examine whether a software update caused it.
LIVE UPDATE — 6:20 p.m. ET, Nov. 13, 2026: Europe and Mexico have now suspended U.S.-bound departures at the FAA’s request. Eurocontrol’s Network Manager Operations Centre in Brussels notified aircraft operators that, on the FAA’s request due to technical issues, all traffic departing the ECAC area bound for U.S. airports is suspended between 5:00 p.m. ET Friday and midnight ET. Mexico’s Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC) issued its own notice of temporary restrictions on air operations to the United States.
LIVE UPDATE — 8:19 p.m. ET, Nov. 13, 2026: The FAA has lifted the nationwide ground stop. The Air Traffic Control System Command Center cancelled the stop in an advisory issued at 8:19 p.m. ET, ending a halt to departures that began at 3:54 p.m. ET. Airlines are working through a large backlog of delayed and cancelled flights, and ground delay programs remain in place at some airports.
LIVE UPDATE — 9:01 p.m. ET, Nov. 13, 2026: At a White House briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Mullin and Transportation Secretary Duffy attributed the outage to overloaded network equipment beginning at 3:36 p.m. ET, saying older hardware failed while sites with upgraded IP switches stayed online. Officials said there is no evidence of a cyberattack and the public was never in danger. Duffy said the department’s request to modernize the air traffic control system has risen to $50 billion and that improvement is hoped for tomorrow.
LIVE UPDATE — 9:29 p.m. ET, Nov. 13, 2026: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, in a post tonight giving the official timeline, said more than 3,500 aircraft were in the air when the telecommunications problems began at 3:36 p.m. ET and that fewer than 400 remained airborne by 8 p.m. He said the FAA did not lose all radar or telecommunications, and that medevac and law-enforcement flights were excepted from the stop.
LIVE UPDATE — 9:13 a.m. ET, Nov. 14, 2026: The FAA said Saturday morning that air traffic operations have returned to normal following Friday’s nationwide ground stop.
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