FAA issues nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports

BREAKING: The FAA has issued a nationwide ground stop halting all US departing flights, citing a communication issue affecting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.

Every departing flight in the United States is grounded right now.

The FAA has issued a nationwide ground stop, halting all departures across the country. The agency is citing a communication issue affecting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers, the facilities that manage aircraft moving between airports at altitude. These centers are the backbone of American airspace, and a failure touching all of them at once is exactly the scenario the system is built to prevent.

A full nationwide ground stop is rare. The last comparable event was the NOTAM system failure in January 2023, which froze departures across the country for hours and rippled through schedules for days. Planes already in the air continue to their destinations, but nothing new leaves the gate until the FAA clears the system.

Thousands of flights, millions of passengers, and every US airport are now waiting on one fix. We will bring you the restart the moment it comes.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.