FAA Lifts Nationwide Ground Stop After Communications Outage | UPDATE

The roughly four-hour halt affected Sea-Tac departures; delays and cancellations continued Friday evening.

Originally posted 11/13/26 5:37 pm. Updated 11/13/26 10:12 pm

UPDATE: The FAA lifted the nationwide ground stop after about four hours. Departures at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac) were affected. Airlines warned that delays and cancellations could continue as they worked to get flights and crews back on schedule. Travelers should check directly with their airline for the latest flight information. (Associated Press⁠; Sea-Tac flight status⁠) 

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop Friday afternoon, halting departing flights at U.S. airports, including Sea-Tac. The FAA cited “extraordinary circumstances and reasons for safety” in its ground-stop advisory⁠.

Flights already in the air were allowed to land. Inbound international flights were to be handled case by case, according to Reuters⁠. 

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the communications problem affected the air traffic control centers that direct flights between airports. The cause was not immediately known. Later Friday, Duffy said the outage appeared to involve aging equipment, including old switches and routers, that had become overloaded. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said officials had found no evidence of a cyberattack, NPR reported⁠. 

The last nationwide ground stop before Friday’s order was in January 2023, when an outage in the FAA’s pilot-notification system halted departing flights. Before that, the FAA ordered a nationwide stop on Sept. 11, 2001, as the terrorist attacks unfolded. The agency’s historical chronology⁠ records the events of Sept. 11; a Government Accountability Office report⁠ describes the January 2023 ground stop as the first since the attacks.