The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a nationwide ground stop shortly before 4 p.m. Eastern time on November 13, 2026, after a communications outage affected every US Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) in the country. It was the first time since January 2023 that the agency had halted departures nationwide, and only the second nationwide ground stop since the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001.
The FAA subsequently advised crews to expect airborne holding at airports nationwide because of equipment outages. Flightradar24 reported that about 3,100 aircraft were airborne and bound for US airports during the ground stop. The tracking figure includes all US-bound flights in the air at the time. The number actually holding was unclear.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy described the problem as “a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers” and said FAA technicians were investigating. The regional centers direct aircraft primarily during the en route portion of a flight. Duffy’s initial statement did not identify which system had failed or give a time for departures to resume.
The nationwide order followed an earlier halt in Chicago, where air traffic controllers had encountered communications problems. Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport subsequently confirmed it was holding all departures. At San Francisco International Airport, spokesman Doug Yakel said aircraft already en route continued to land while departures were held.
The previous nationwide ground stop, on January 11, 2023, lasted roughly 90 minutes after the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions (Notam) system went down. The agency later found that contract personnel had inadvertently deleted files while working to synchronize the system’s primary and backup databases.
Hours before the November 13 ground stop, the White House and the US Department of Transportation asked Congress for an additional $30.1 billion for aviation infrastructure modernization. That request included $10.1 billion for air traffic control upgrades.