Air traffic has come to a standstill across the United States. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the US authority responsible for air traffic control, has ordered a nationwide ground stop, requiring aircraft to remain grounded until further notice. The extraordinary measure was prompted by safety concerns linked to a communications malfunction.
The news was first reported by Fox News, which highlighted the exceptional nature of the order, comparing it to the flight suspension imposed after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stepped in to explain the reasons behind the stoppage. The issue reportedly affects the communications systems at all centers responsible for managing high-altitude air traffic, which coordinate aircraft movements between airports.
FAA technicians are working to identify the source of the fault and restore the systems. According to CNN, citing sources within the aviation authority, there is currently no indication that the malfunction is the result of a cyberattack.
The repercussions of the ground stop are already being felt beyond US borders. In the United Kingdom, the 10:30 p.m. flight from London Heathrow to New York JFK was cancelled, according to Sky News UK. International flights already en route to American airports will reportedly be cleared to land on a case-by-case basis.
The situation has been further complicated by the temporary outage of the FAA’s website dedicated to air traffic communications. After the ground stop notice was published, the platform became inaccessible, and numerous previously available updates disappeared from view.
According to Axios, the US aviation authority is also in the process of gradually rolling out a new artificial intelligence–based system to improve air traffic management. It remains unclear, however, whether this technology is in any way connected to the problems currently being experienced.
The cause of the malfunction and the timeline for resuming normal flight operations remain to be clarified.
