US flights grounded nationwide following communication outage
The Federal Aviation Administration halted all departing flights on Friday due to a telecommunications issue affecting air traffic control centres.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a nationwide ground stop for all departing flights at US airports on Friday, November 13, 2026. According to reports from The Hindu, BusinessLine and The Indian Express, the halt was caused by a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centres.
The FAA stated the decision was made out of an abundance of caution due to extraordinary circumstances and safety reasons. While flights already in the air may land, departing traffic was ordered to remain grounded until further notice. International flights are being managed on a case-by-case basis.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication of a nefarious attack, stating, "This isn’t another 9/11." A person familiar with the matter told BusinessLine that the Federal Bureau of Investigation does not believe the outage is due to criminality or a cyber attack, noting that a software update is one area of inquiry.
The incident marks only the second nationwide ground stop of all departures since the September 11, 2001, attacks, the previous one occurring in January 2023. This outage follows a global Microsoft outage that affected various services, though there is no indication the two incidents are related.
The disruption comes as US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought requested $30 billion from Congress to modernise the national airspace. This follows a $12.5 billion allocation approved last year to address ageing communications systems.
Most operations had resumed by late Friday, November 14, 2026. Following the halt, shares of major airlines fell, with JetBlue Airways Corp. dropping 3.5 per cent and American Airlines Group Inc. falling 1.7 per cent.
