All Flights Grounded Across the US Over ‘Extraordinary Circumstances and Security Concerns’

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a nationwide suspension of domestic flights on Friday afternoon, citing “extraordinary circumstances and security concerns” following problems with air traffic control communications. The order has affected thousands of flights across the country, leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded and uncertain about when they will be able to resume their journeys.Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the disruption in a social media post, explaining, without providing many details, that a communications problem was affecting all of the country’s air route traffic control centers. “FAA technicians are investigating the issue,” the Trump administration official added. The communications problems are reportedly affecting air traffic control radar systems and radio frequencies.According to flight-tracking platform FlightAware, around 2,630 flights have been canceled and more than 26,100 delayed. Looking only at domestic flights departing from or arriving at US airports, 1,985 have been affected by the shutdown, while 10,494 have experienced delays. A map on Flightradar, another flight-tracking website, shows severe disruptions at airports across the country as a result of the communications failure.The @FAAnews issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers. FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them.— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) November 13, 2026 The FAA announced the suspension of all domestic flights at around 4 p.m. Eastern Time, or approximately 10 p.m. in Madrid. “All departing flights are required to remain on the ground until further notice. International arrivals will be handled on a case-by-case basis,” the agency said in a statement.At around 4:30 p.m., just over 3,000 flights were still arriving at US airports, according to flight-tracking platform AirNav Radar. These were among the last aircraft to take off before ground operations were suspended. The FAA “still doesn’t know what’s going on; it’s affecting different facilities in different ways,” an airline source told CNN. “Ten minutes ago, they were on a crisis call and there was still no clear answer about the cause.”Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin clarified that the incident involved a communications problem and ruled out criminal activity as the cause of the domestic flight shutdown. However, investigators were still examining the precise circumstances and had not ruled out any possibilities. “At this point, there is no indication that this is a malicious attack against us. Right now, this is just a telecommunications outage,” he said at a press conference at the White House.02:38Markwayne Mullin descarta que suspensión de vuelos sea por ataqueMarkwayne Mullin afuera de la Casa Blanca el 13 de noviembre 2026.Photo: Elizabeth Frantz (Reuters) | Video: APMajor airlines issued alerts warning passengers about delays and cancellations. United Airlines and American Airlines, two of the country’s largest carriers, posted statements on X explaining that flights already in the air would continue to their destinations. United said that while domestic departures would remain grounded, “the FAA is handling international departures on a case-by-case basis.” American Airlines said its employees would be working “at full capacity to ensure customers can continue their journeys as soon as possible once the FAA lifts this nationwide ground stop.”Mullin, the Trump administration official in charge of homeland security, spoke to reporters outside the White House in an effort to reassure the public amid the serious disruption to the country’s air traffic system. “Do we know what caused this yet?” he asked. “No, we’re going to look into it. But I’m not going to speculate,” he said, declining to estimate how long it would take for operations to return to normal.The hardest-hit airports include Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Chicago O’Hare, and New York’s LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International airports, according to FlightAware. The airlines reporting the most disruptions are SkyWest and Delta Air Lines.Mullin stressed that the immediate priority was to ensure that aircraft still in the air could land safely and without complications. He acknowledged, however, that he had no information about how long the suspension might last. “We haven’t discussed any timeline,” he said. “This is going to take time,” he added. “So this isn’t going to be resolved or fixed in an hour.”Meanwhile, thousands of passengers were gathering in terminals at airports across the United States. Statistics show that just over two million people typically travel on domestic flights in the country each day. If the disruption lasts too long, it could trigger widespread chaos just days before the busiest travel period of the year, when millions of Americans take to the roads and skies to reunite with family for Thanksgiving.The Homeland Security secretary, whose department oversees Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agencies responsible for mass deportations and sweeping immigration raids, avoided comparing the aviation shutdown with previous incidents and ruled out any connection to the September 11, 2001, attacks. “This is not the same as 9/11. That’s a road I’m not going to go down,” he said.The last time a nationwide flight suspension was ordered was in January 2023, when an outage affected the system used to notify pilots of potential hazards and operational changes. Before that, the last nationwide grounding took place following the September 11 attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.EL PAÍS contacted the FAA for an explanation of the reasons behind Friday’s suspension but had not received a response at the time of publication.Friday’s disruption comes just days after the FAA announced plans to begin deploying an artificial intelligence (AI) tool at domestic airports to help air traffic controllers prevent delays, according to The New York Times. The new program was introduced at Washington-area airports a couple of months ago. Its launch, however, coincided with a day of further air traffic communications failures that disrupted hundreds of flights after a fiber-optic cable serving the communications system was accidentally cut.Following the federal agency’s announcement, delays began to be reported at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. Some passengers gathered around airline counters to ask about their luggage and connecting flights. Airport staff offered only brief explanations. “I know you have a lot of questions, but I don’t have the answers,” one flight attendant announced over the public address system. “Every single airline and every single aircraft is grounded.” “No airline, nobody, is flying,” an employee said. “Nobody’s going anywhere,” another added.One of the passengers waiting patiently near Gate C1 was David Tapia. He had arrived in Las Vegas with his team on Tuesday to work at the Latin Grammy Awards ceremony. He was scheduled to fly back to Los Angeles on Friday. “Shutting down airports across the entire country is a big deal, especially on a Friday. And it’s Friday the 13th. I’m not superstitious, but it’s an unlucky day,” he said.In 2023, a computer failure brought departures to a complete standstill at airports across the United States, resulting in more than 1,000 canceled flights and tens of thousands of delays nationwide. The outage disabled the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, which alerts pilots and other flight personnel to potential hazards along their routes and changes to airport facilities, services or procedures.