FAA Halts All US Departures After Telecom Outage Hits ATC Centers

By James Calloway

The FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop at 20:54 UTC (15:54 EST) on Friday 13 November, freezing departures at every airport in the United States after a telecommunications failure struck multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers. It is only the second such order since 11 September 2001.

The directive comes from the FAA's Air Traffic Control System Command Center as Advisory 111, titled "National Ground Stop." The advisory cites "extraordinary circumstances" and "reasons of safety." On paper, the window runs until 04:30 UTC on Saturday. The FAA has not committed to a firm restart time.

The FAA said on X: "There has been a temporary telecommunications outage – out of an abundance of caution all flights have been halted. Every flight has been accounted for and international flights will be handled on a case by case basis."

What does the outage actually affect?

The fault hits Air Route Traffic Control Centers, the facilities that manage aircraft cruising generally above 18,000 feet. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the scope on X: the issue affects all Air Route Traffic Control Centers, and FAA technicians are investigating.

Reports from the Washington Examiner and The Air Current point to widespread radio frequency outages. Chicago O'Hare and Midway had already gone under ground stops before the national order, after an equipment outage, according to CBS News.

What the FAA has not said matters just as much. No root cause has been named. No repair timeline exists. "Temporary" is a claim, not a verified duration.

What does this change for passengers?

Aircraft already airborne continue to their destinations. United Airlines confirmed its in-flight aircraft will proceed while domestic departures hold. Inbound international flights, including transatlantic arrivals from the UK and Europe, fall under the case-by-case approach.

That leaves travellers facing long delays at the start of a busy weekend. And the recovery will outlast the order itself.

• Aircraft and crews will sit out of position once departures resume
• Some crews may exceed legal duty-hour limits
• Disruption could spill into Saturday across the US network
• Passengers should check with their airline before travelling to the airport

How rare is this step?

Nationwide ground stops are extremely rare. The only precedent since 2001 came on 11 January 2023, when the FAA's NOTAM system failed and pilots lost access to safety notices. That outage produced more than 10,000 delays and over 1,300 cancellations. The ground stop itself lasted less than two hours.

The comparison cuts both ways. A short stop still cascaded into five-figure delays two years ago. Airlines and airports should plan for a longer tail this time, whatever the advisory window says.

The FAA has promised updates as technicians work through the fault. Until the agency names a cause and a restart time, every recovery estimate remains provisional.