Nationwide U.S. Flight Grounding: Communications Failure Suspected to Be Tied to Software Update

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On November 13, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a nationwide ground stop order due to a communications failure in air route traffic control, halting all departing flights and handling inbound international flights on a case-by-case basis. It was the third nationwide ground stop in the agency’s history, following the January 2023 NOTAM system outage. Transportation Secretary Duffy said all air route control centers were affected; Homeland Security Secretary Mullin said President Trump had been briefed, that there was no indication of a malicious attack, and stressed the incident was unrelated to the previous day’s Microsoft service disruption. A person familiar said the FBI is investigating whether a software update caused the failure. The ground stop was lifted that evening after 4 hours and 21 minutes, with more than 8,000 flights canceled and effects expected to persist through the weekend. Flights departing Japan were also affected, with Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways temporarily suspending check-in for U.S. routes.

Key Elements

On November 13 local time, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a nationwide ground stop order requiring all departing flights to remain on the ground until further notice. It was the third nationwide ground stop in the agency’s history, following the January 2023 NOTAM system outage and, before that, the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on social platform X that day that all air route traffic control centers were affected by the communications problem and that technicians were troubleshooting the failure. The FAA said in its order that the ground stop was due to special circumstances and safety reasons, and that inbound international flights would be handled on a case-by-case basis. Shortly before issuing the nationwide order, the agency had already halted air traffic in the Chicago area because of an air traffic control communications problem.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said that afternoon that President Trump had been briefed on the matter. He made clear the ground stop was not triggered by a security threat: “This is a telecommunications outage at the FAA. Out of an abundance of caution, we have grounded all flights.” He added that there was no indication so far of a malicious attack and stressed that the failure was unrelated to the large-scale Microsoft service disruption that began the previous day, calling them “separate issues.”

According to U.S. reports, a person familiar with the matter said the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation believes the communications problem affecting air traffic control was not caused by a cyberattack or criminal activity, and that one line of inquiry is whether a software update triggered the failure.

Data from flight-tracking website FlightAware showed that as of 5:40 p.m. Eastern time on the 13th, more than 1,100 flights in the United States had been canceled and nearly 10,000 delayed. Other tallies showed that nearly 7,000 U.S. flights were delayed or canceled due to the nationwide ground stop. By early that evening, communications at some air traffic control facilities began to recover.

The ground stop was lifted at 8:15 p.m. Eastern time on the 13th, lasting 4 hours and 21 minutes in total. The agency said that as air route control facilities came back online, flights would be cleared for takeoff in coordination with the air traffic control system. But lifting the ground stop did not mean a return to normal: airlines need to reposition aircraft and crews, and delays and cancellations were expected to persist through the weekend. According to NHK, as of noon Japan time on the 14th, more than 8,000 flights had been canceled.

Key moments from that afternoon to late night Eastern time:

Speaking further at a news conference that evening, Duffy said a telecommunications router had crashed due to data overload, and described U.S. air traffic control infrastructure as aging and “going to keep having problems,” urging Congress to increase investment. American Airlines warned that flight operations were expected to remain disrupted for the rest of the day; JetBlue told employees it was canceling all remaining flights that day except European routes, as well as some Saturday flights, in order to reposition aircraft and crews. Mullin also said recovery “will take some time,” but that all flights were accounted for and the public need not panic.

In terms of scope, the ground stop covered departing flights at all U.S. airports, coming on the eve of the weekend travel peak, leaving airlines and passengers facing widespread itinerary changes. Flights within Alaska and Hawaii, as well as flights from Hawaii to destinations outside the U.S. mainland, were allowed to take off as normal. Inbound international flights were not fully halted but had to be handled case by case, markedly raising uncertainty for cross-border routes: flights from Europe to the U.S. were temporarily suspended, Mexico’s civil aviation authority asked aircraft within its territory bound for the U.S. to wait on the ground, and Canada’s navigation authority said its systems were unaffected and it was assisting diverted flights.

The failure in the United States was transmitted directly to flights departing Japan. Japan Airlines (JAL) said that because it had not obtained U.S. permission to operate flights over U.S. airspace, it had suspended check-in for nine flights from Haneda and Narita to the U.S. mainland, Guam and Europe; check-in for European routes had resumed, U.S. routes were expected to resume gradually, and cancellations were not anticipated. All Nippon Airways (ANA) canceled round-trip flights between Haneda and Sydney on the 14th and suspended check-in for flights to the United States, with no word yet on when it would resume. According to Haneda Airport, U.S.-to-Japan flights were about to enter a peak departure period, and ANA was continuing to gather information.

Notably, the incident came just days after the FAA expanded its use of artificial intelligence tools. On November 10, the agency extended an AI air traffic management tool called SMART (Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories) to all air traffic control centers. The FAA denied that the system was related to the failure, while Mullin said he was “not ruling out anything.”

Looking back, on January 11, 2023, the FAA’s NOTAM system failed, grounding flights nationwide for about an hour and a half; it was later found that a contractor’s maintenance work had corrupted a database file. Compared with that episode, this ground stop was broader in scope and longer in duration.

Note: This incident’s cancellation figure is a cumulative tally after the ground stop was lifted; in 2001, U.S. airspace was closed for about two days and same-day cancellations were not counted on the same basis.

As of the 14th, the FAA had not disclosed the specific technical cause of the failure. Aviation data firms and several airlines were updating flight status in real time, and passengers were advised to confirm flight information before heading to the airport.

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