Washington: The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday imposed a nationwide ground stop at all US airports after a telecommunications disruption affected air traffic control operations across the country. The measure led to widespread flight delays and cancellations, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
According to the FAA, the temporary telecommunications outage impacted all 22 Air Route Traffic Control Centers in the United States. These centres are responsible for providing direction to aircraft, particularly incoming flights, within their respective regions. As a precaution, the FAA halted all departures, allowing only planes already airborne to land.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the development in a post on X. He stated that the FAA had ordered the ground stop after communications problems affected air traffic control functions nationwide. FAA technicians were investigating the issue, and updates would be shared as soon as they became available.
In its own statement on X, the FAA said the disruption was temporary and that the ground stop had been imposed as a safety measure. It added that the status of all flights had been accounted for and that international flights would be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Flight-tracking platform FlightAware reported that approximately 7,000 flights were either delayed or cancelled following the ground stop. Passengers were left stranded at several airports, including Boston, as the disruption rippled across the national airspace system.
The incident highlights the critical dependence of the aviation network on reliable telecommunications infrastructure linking the country’s air traffic control centres.
