The US Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop late on November 13, 2026, after multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers reported equipment and communication failures. Departing flights across the United States were held on the ground, and inbound international flights were managed case by case, according to TechCrunch.
The FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center advisory covered the window from 8:53 pm on November 13 to 4 am on November 14 (all times Eastern), and cited “extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety” without further detail. The FAA’s own website listed the cause as an “equipment outage.”
An FAA spokesperson told TechCrunch the ground stop followed “communication issues impacting multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers,” the facilities that manage high altitude US airspace. The exact cause had not been confirmed at the time of reporting.
What officials said
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the outage on X, saying “FAA technicians are investigating the issue.” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters there was “no indication yet that this was a nefarious act,” while cautioning that full recovery “is going to take some time.”
Neither official confirmed a cyberattack, a weather event, or a staffing issue as the trigger. The FAA has not published a detailed technical explanation of the equipment outage as of this report.
The United States runs 21 Air Route Traffic Control Centers, each responsible for a block of high altitude airspace that airports in several states route through. A failure that spreads across “multiple” of these centers, as the FAA spokesperson described it, can affect departures far beyond the airports closest to the fault.
Is the new AI air traffic tool connected?
TechCrunch’s report noted that the outage arrived the same week the US government rolled out a new AI powered tool for air traffic controllers, but said it remains unclear whether the two are related. No official has linked the tool to the equipment failure, and the FAA has not addressed the question directly in public statements reviewed so far.
Who is affected
The ground stop applies to departing flights nationwide, with inbound international flights reviewed case by case rather than blocked outright. Airlines have not published their own passenger impact numbers yet, and the FAA advisory did not state how many flights were delayed or cancelled.
Air Route Traffic Control Centers are the facilities that separate aircraft once they climb above the airspace managed by local towers and approach control. A communication failure across several of these centers at once can ripple into every airport that routes traffic through them, which is why a single equipment problem can ground flights nationwide rather than at one city.
The FAA has dealt with major nationwide system failures before. A separate notice to airmen system outage in January 2023 grounded departures across the United States for several hours. Officials have not yet said whether November 13’s equipment outage shares a cause with that earlier incident.
What happens next
The FAA advisory window was set to lapse at 4 am Eastern on November 14, but officials have given no firm timeline for when normal departures would fully resume nationwide. A confirmed cause, whether a hardware fault, a software bug, or something else, has not yet been published.
This is the second major infrastructure disruption reported this week, after a separate roughly 18 hour global Microsoft cloud outage that began November 12 and hit Outlook, Teams and Copilot. Neither incident has a confirmed link to the other, and officials have described both as unrelated system failures rather than coordinated attacks so far.
Frequently asked questions
Was the FAA ground stop caused by a cyberattack?
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication yet of a nefarious act. No agency has confirmed a cyberattack as the cause.
How long did the ground stop last?
The FAA’s advisory covered departures from 8:53 pm Eastern on November 13 to 4 am Eastern on November 14, though officials gave no firm guarantee that normal operations would resume fully at that time.
Were international flights to and from the US affected?
Inbound international flights were managed case by case rather than halted outright, according to the FAA advisory reported by TechCrunch.
What should travellers do right now?
The FAA advisory did not direct travellers to take any specific action beyond checking with their airline, and airlines had not published a combined cancellation count at the time of this report. Passengers with flights scheduled during the advisory window should expect delays and confirm status directly with their carrier rather than assume automatic rebooking.
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