FAA lifts longest US nationwide flight ground stoppage since 9/11; what travelers need to know

Flights resume after stoppage

The Federal Aviation Administration reopened US skies at 20:15 EST after halting flights nationwide. The stoppage was the longest since the attacks of 11 September 2001, and only the second nationwide halt since then.

FlightAware reported more than 8,500 delayed flights and nearly 8,000 cancellations on Friday. More than 3,500 aircraft were airborne when the stoppage began; some diverted, while others continued to their destinations.

Technical problems disrupt operations

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said an old air traffic control communications system became overloaded, affecting communications and radar. He said new technology introduced into the legacy system had overwhelmed it.

Duffy said the system needed a complete overhaul and estimated the cost at $50 billion. The outage was expected to have effects for several days.

Officials rule out attack evidence

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said everyone was safe and officials had seen no evidence of an attack. At a news conference, he said there was “zero evidence” that the outage was a cyber-attack. The article describes the stoppage as caused by technical issues, while reporting that officials had not identified an attack.

Disruption reaches travellers abroad

Tens of thousands of people were stranded at airports across the country. Duffy said many did not know where they would sleep that night.

Earlier outage also halted flights

Dr Gratton pointed to a nationwide US grounding in 2023 after a failure in the Notice to Air Missions system. That outage stopped the publication of air traffic safety notices, and flights remained grounded until the system was restored.