The FAA halted takeoffs across the country Friday afternoon after a communications issue hit the centers that guide planes between airports. Officials say travelers are safe, and they have not confirmed a cyberattack.
By Methodical Jon | Nov 13, 2026
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a rare nationwide ground stop at 3:54 p.m. ET on Friday, November 13th 2026, after what it called a "temporary telecommunications outage." The order stopped departing flights at all U.S. airports "due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety," according to an FAA command-center advisory. Planes already in the air were allowed to land. Inbound international flights would be handled case by case.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the issue was "impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers" and that FAA technicians were investigating, in a post on X that NBC News said went up at 4:16 p.m. ET. Cirium said 11,000 flights were scheduled to depart U.S. airports after 4 p.m. ET, CNBC reported.
What happened
Shortly before the nationwide order, the FAA had already halted traffic in Chicago because of air traffic control communications issues, Reuters reported. The national advisory, signed at 20:54 GMT, said all departing traffic should remain ground-stopped until further notice, and AP reported that the order ran through at least 11 p.m. ET Friday.
On X, the FAA said it halted flights "out of an abundance of caution" and that every flight had been accounted for, as quoted by CNBC and NBC News. An internal Alaska Airlines message seen by CNBC described communications and radar problems. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said planes were still landing because of redundancies in the system, and that President Donald Trump had been briefed.
By late afternoon, FlightAware was tracking nearly 7,000 delayed or canceled flights, according to Reuters. Cirium counted about 600 diverted flights on Friday, CNBC said. American Airlines said it expected disruption for the rest of the day. Around 6:00 p.m. ET, the FAA said flights would be allowed to depart as facilities recovered, CNBC reported, and San Francisco International Airport said Pacific-bound flights had been cleared to leave, according to NBC News.
Officials have not confirmed a cyberattack
The cause is still under investigation. Mullin told reporters the incident "was a telecommunication outage throughout FAA" and that "there was no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack against us." Pressed on whether it could be a cyberattack, he said the Department of Homeland Security was not ruling that out, but added, "as of right now, that's not known," The Hill reported. He also said "everybody's safe."
Multiple officials from multiple agencies told NBC News that, at this early stage, they had seen no indication of malicious activity and none of the signs normally associated with a cyberattack. They cautioned that the findings could change. Reuters also reported no immediate indication the failure was caused by a cyberattack.
Why it matters
Nationwide ground stops are extremely rare. The last one was in January 2023, when a failure of the FAA's Notice to Air Missions system halted domestic departures for less than two hours, Reuters and CNBC reported. Before that, the last nationwide stop was after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Friday's outage is the latest strain on a system already dealing with aging equipment. On the same day, the White House and the Department of Transportation urged Congress to approve a further $30.1 Billion USD to upgrade U.S. airports and air traffic control, Reuters reported. Aviation analyst Robert Mann of R.W. Mann & Co. told Reuters that if the stop continued through the evening, it would likely take the weekend to unwind the disruption to airline networks.
The money lesson
1. One chokepoint can stop a whole system. When communications fail at the centers that guide planes between airports, takeoffs stop even if the planes, pilots and airports are ready.
2. Redundancy is the product. Mullin said planes could still land because backup communications were working. The businesses that hold up in a shock already built a second path.
3. Don't trade the rumor. Officials have not confirmed a cyberattack. The verified facts are the outage, the ground stop and an investigation that is still open. Wait for the primary source before you act on the scarier explanation.
From the Methodical Millions archive
We covered this kind of chokepoint in Episode 54 - $400 Million Mistake. In that episode, Methodical Jon and co-host Kal used the Ever Given blocking the Suez Canal to talk about planning for the worst case, responding fast, and building a process so the same break doesn't happen twice.
What to watch
- When the ground stop lifts. The FAA advisory ran through at least 11:00 p.m. ET Friday, but departures stay stopped until further notice.
- The root cause. Watch for a statement from the FAA, the Transportation Department, CISA or the FBI that confirms or rules out a cyberattack.
- The weekend schedule. Watch airline cancellation totals Saturday morning, and whether the $30.1 Billion USD upgrade request gains any urgency in Congress.
At the time of writing (about 6:35 p.m. ET on Nov 13, 2026), the nationwide ground stop was still in effect, with some international and Pacific-bound departures beginning to move. This article is for informational purposes only.
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Sources:
- FAA ATCSCC Advisory 111, national ground stop (Nov 13, 2026): https://www.fly.faa.gov/ois/oisedit/adv_oisedit_dis?day=11132026&number=111
- CNBC, "FAA grounds departing flights nationwide, citing air traffic communication system outage" (Nov 13, 2026): https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/13/faa-ground-stop.html
- Reuters via The Christian Science Monitor, "FAA grounds flights nationwide, citing communications outage" (Nov 13, 2026): https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2026/1113/faa-nationwide-ground-stop-airlines
- AP, "Live updates: FAA grounds flights nationwide due to communications problems" (Nov 13, 2026): https://apnews.com/live/ground-stop-aviation-flights-news-updates-11-13-2026
- NBC News, "Live updates: FAA grounds flights nationwide because of communication issue" (Nov 13, 2026): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/live-updates-flights-grounded-faa-communications-outage-rcna609268
- The Hill, "Mullin: No indication of 'nefarious attack' on FAA as DHS investigates root cause of telecom outage" (Nov 13, 2026): https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/6219936-mullin-faa-telecommunication-outage-ground-stop/
- American Airlines newsroom, "Update on FAA's nationwide ground stop" (Nov 13, 2026): https://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2026/Update-on-FAAs-nationwide-ground-stop/
- The Washington Post, "FAA grounds flights at all U.S. airports, citing 'telecommunications outage'" (Nov 13, 2026): https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2026/11/13/faa-grounds-flights-all-us-airports-citing-communications-issue/
This article may be AI-assisted and is subject to errors and omissions.