The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all departing flights across the United States on the afternoon of Friday, November 13, 2026. The agency issued the mandate citing safety considerations and extraordinary circumstances. Under the agency's advisory, departures were halted across the country, though controllers continued guiding arriving overseas flights individually.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated that the nationwide halt followed "a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers." The United States relies on 22 Air Route Traffic Control Centers to direct en-route air traffic cruising above 18,000 feet. Regulators had earlier stopped departures at Chicago O'Hare International Airport and Chicago Midway International Airport following an equipment outage.
Federal technicians are examining the equipment failure that disabled communication lines across air traffic facilities. Flight monitors recorded that select outbound international flights took off from Boston Logan International Airport around 5:20 p.m. Eastern Time, including planes heading to Frankfurt and Rome. The event marks only the second nationwide ground stop ordered since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, following a January 2023 outage of the NOTAM pilot alert system.
