FAA grounds departing flights nationwide, citing air traffic communication system outage

The Federal Aviation Administration halted departing flights nationwide on Friday, a rare measure, after reporting communications issues affecting "multiple" air traffic control centers.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Friday at the White House that there was no indication that the issues were a threat to the United States.

The FAA said in post on X that there was a "temporary telecommunications outage" and that it halted flights out of an "abundance of caution."

The issues were related to communications and radar problems, according to an internal message from Alaska Airlines , which was seen by CNBC.

"The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following communication issues impacting multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers," the FAA said. These so-called centers guide airplanes at high altitudes along their routes.

Airlines said flights in the air would continue.

The FAA's technicians are investigating, the agency said.

A ground stop halts flights at their departure point. Departing traffic was halted until further notice, the agency said, disrupting hundreds of flights.

Disruptions tend to snowball if ground stops drag on as flight crews reach their maximum number of duty hours for a day.

Nationwide ground stops are extremely rare. In January 2023, the FAA halted flights because of issues with a pilot alert system. Before that, traffic was halted nationwide after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

There were 11,000 flights scheduled to depart U.S. airports after 4 p.m. ET on Friday, according to flight-data firm Cirium.

Inbound international flights will be managed on a case by case basis, the FAA said.

United Airlines said it "will work with our customers to get them to their destinations once this issue is resolved."

— CNBC's Kevin Breuninger contributed to this article.

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