The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States ordered an immediate halt to all outbound flights in the country, citing "extraordinary circumstances and security reasons" in an unprecedented measure that paralyzed national airspace.
The Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, confirmed the order in a social media post, attributing the cause to a communications failure that simultaneously affected all Air Traffic Control Centers in the country, the regional facilities that manage cruising flight traffic through U.S. airspace, noted the CNN network.
“Traffic must remain halted until further notice. International flights will be managed on a case-by-case basis,” stated the FAA in its operational notice.
Duffy specified that "FAA technicians are investigating the problem," without providing further details about the cause of the failure or an estimated timeline for its resolution.
According to the agency's operational records, the suspension was in effect for approximately one hour and twenty minutes, from around 3:10 PM to 4:30 PM Eastern Time. The initial report counted up to 2,950 affected flights, with maximum delays of 71 minutes and an average delay of 33 minutes. A later update revised the number to 647 flights with maximum delays of 66 minutes.
A source quoted by U.S. media described the incident as a possible "progressive frequency interference," although the FAA did not officially confirm that characterization.
Total national ground stops are extremely rare events in U.S. aviation. The last occurrence took place in January 2023, when the pilot notification system collapsed due to the accidental deletion of files by contracted staff, resulting in nearly 9,000 delays and 1,300 cancellations nationwide before the situation was resolved in less than two hours, reported the AP agency.
Before that incident, the only precedent for a complete shutdown of airspace was on September 11, 2001, after the terrorist attacks, when the closure lasted almost two days.
The incident this Friday occurs at a time when the FAA and the Department of Transportation have been implementing an ambitious plan to modernize air traffic control infrastructure. As part of this effort, the agency has set a goal to incorporate 2,200 new controllers during fiscal year 2026, with a total target of 12,563 certified controllers. As of April this year, the FAA had approximately 11,000 operational controllers and an additional 4,000 in training.
The U.S. airspace had already recorded several minor incidents in 2026: in July, a technological failure at American Airlines forced the grounding of its entire fleet, resulting in approximately 1,100 delays and at least 221 cancellations; in September, a fiber optic cut at the Philadelphia control center caused around 500 cancellations just at Newark Airport.
At the close of this report, the FAA had not issued a formal statement announcing the definitive lifting of the nationwide order.
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