FAA Ground Stop Disrupts Thousands of Flights; SMART AI System Vendor and Microsoft Both Deny Fault

Nationwide Flights Halted

On Friday afternoon, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered planes grounded nationwide because of communications issues. By 6:40 p.m. ET, FlightAware.com reported more than 3,220 canceled flights into, within, or out of the US, and about 10,200 delays.

Images from airports around the country showed crowds gathering, passengers leaving flights and aircraft lined up on tarmacs. The ground stop was described as nearly unprecedented; the only other nationwide halt cited was the one after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Vendor Denies System Link

Some people online questioned whether the outage involved SMART, an AI tool from Air Space Intelligence that monitors air traffic and aims to prevent delays. The system began wider rollout this week. POLITICO reported in September that airline industry veterans had initially been nervous because the FAA's description was vague. Air Space Intelligence said on X that the ground stop was not based on or caused by SMART, an ASI product, or its integration with the FAA and air traffic control.

Microsoft Also Rules Out Link

Microsoft also faced a worldwide outage this week, disrupting services including email for hours and affecting major companies. The incident prompted online speculation about a possible connection to the FAA disruption. The company wrote on X that it had no indication the nationwide FAA ground stop was related to Microsoft services.

Cause Remains Unclear

At a Friday evening press conference outside the White House, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said authorities were not ruling out any possible cause of the outage. The statements from Air Space Intelligence and Microsoft addressed their own systems but did not establish what caused the FAA communications problems.