> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.thecontrail.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # LIVE: FAA Halts All Flights Departing for US Airports in Nationwide Ground Stop - URL: https://www.thecontrail.org/faa-radio-outage-ground-stop-chicago-new-york/ - Published: 2026-11-13T20:41:16.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-13T22:10:43.000Z - Description: Air traffic control centers are losing their radios and flight-tracking systems, and every US airport is ground stopped. I'm updating this live. - Author: Zach Benitez - Tags: News, Breaking News, #live The FAA has issued a nationwide ground stop, meaning no flights may depart for any US airport until further notice, after a communication failure hit air traffic control across the country on Friday afternoon. The FAA has called it "a temporary telecommunications outage" and says every flight has been accounted for. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the problem is affecting all of the Air Route Traffic Control Centers, the facilities that guide planes at cruising altitude, and that FAA technicians are investigating. Planes already in the air are being allowed to continue to their destinations, and inbound international flights are being handled case by case. I'm updating this page live. The newest updates are at the top of the Latest Updates section below. Live · Friday, Nov. 13 · As of 5:12 p.m. ET Nationwide Ground Stop **What**No flights may depart for any US airport until further notice **Why**What the FAA calls a "temporary telecommunications outage" hitting air traffic control centers **In the air**Planes already flying are allowed to continue to their destinations **International**Flights heading to the US handled case by case **When it ends**Unknown, and the FAA is preparing for hours of delays **What to do**Don't go to the airport until your airline confirms your flight Graphic: ContrailContrail --- ## Latest Updates *All crew and dispatcher messages on this page are courtesy of* [*FlightDeck*](https://www.tryflightdeck.com/?ref=thecontrail.org)*.* **5:12 p.m. ET:** Canada may be taking on some of the overflow. A message received by Air Transat 539, flying from Cancún to Montreal over South Carolina at 4:54 p.m. Eastern, read: "All Europe flight divert to YUL and YYZ," the airport codes for Montreal and Toronto. It's not clear from the message who sent it or exactly which flights it covers, so treat it with caution. Shortly after, the FAA put Toronto Pearson under its own ground stop until at least 6 p.m. Eastern, without giving a specific reason. **5:05 p.m. ET:** The FAA has finally spoken publicly. "There has been a temporary telecommunications outage," the agency said on X. "Out of an abundance of caution all flights have been halted. Every flight has been accounted for and international flights will be handled on a case by case basis." Calling it temporary is the most reassuring thing the FAA has said so far, but it still hasn't given a cause or a time for flights to resume. **5:04 p.m. ET:** The FAA is now calling it a "nationwide comms failure" in its own words, and it's preparing for a long delay. In a new command center advisory issued at 4:21 p.m. Eastern, the FAA said it had extended flight plan drop times to 240 minutes for all of its en route centers "due to nationwide comms failure," running until midnight Eastern. In plain English, flight plans normally expire from the system if a plane doesn't take off within a set window. Stretching that to four hours means airlines won't have to refile them, which suggests the FAA expects planes to be stuck on the ground for hours, not minutes. The advisory lists Atlanta's air traffic control center as a constrained facility. Canada's air traffic control isn't affected. NAV Canada, which runs air traffic control there, said its systems are operating normally, there's no impact to its operations and it's ready to handle any planes that get diverted into Canadian airspace. **4:56 p.m. ET:** An airline message shown on a Raleigh TV station hints at why the FAA is being so cautious. In the message, sent at 3:46 p.m. Eastern, a dispatcher told all of the airline's flights that "there is fluid ongoing potential security per FAA" and that there was no additional information. Planes still on the ground were told to return to the gate immediately. Planes in the air were told to continue as normal if they were comfortable, and the dispatcher added that if any crew lost contact with air traffic control and felt uncomfortable continuing, "I have your back." The FAA hasn't publicly mentioned a security issue. Its only explanation so far is a communication problem affecting air traffic control centers, and there's still no word on when flights will resume. **4:53 p.m. ET:** When even the airline is suggesting the train, you know it's bad. At 4:31 p.m. Eastern, an American Airlines dispatcher sent this advice to the crew of American 107, a Boeing 777 flying from London to JFK: "My suggestion is you may want to go to Penn Station and take Amtrak." The flight was still over the Atlantic at the time and on track to land at JFK. With nothing allowed to take off anywhere in the country, getting anywhere else from New York tonight may come down to the rails. ![FlightDeck graphic of an American Airlines dispatcher suggesting the crew of American 107 take Amtrak from Penn Station](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ac/ed/acedfbb2-ff9c-499b-b431-eb36d7539be1/content/images/2026/11/aa107-amtrak-flightdeck.png) An American Airlines dispatcher's message to American 107\. Credit: [FlightDeck](https://www.tryflightdeck.com/?ref=thecontrail.org) **4:47 p.m. ET:** Diverted flights are already piling up. The FAA closed Hartford's Bradley International Airport to unscheduled international airline flights, the kind of flights that get diverted there, from 4:39 p.m. until midnight Eastern unless they get permission six hours ahead. That usually happens when an airport runs out of room for extra planes. **4:44 p.m. ET:** This is getting worse, not better. Chicago's air traffic control center reportedly described the failure in stark terms: "We lost all frequencies and automation for handoff and strips," according to AirNav Radar. In plain English, controllers there lost the radio channels they use to talk to pilots, the system that passes each plane from one controller to the next and the electronic records that track every flight. A dispatcher at a US airline also told The Air Current that the FAA's command center said the outage was affecting 10 of its en route air traffic control centers "and growing." There are 20 of those centers across the country. There's still no official cause and no sign of when flights will resume. **4:39 p.m. ET:** The nationwide ground stop is still in place, and there's still no official cause or restart time. An FAA spokesperson described it as "a communications problem impacting Air Route Traffic Control Centers." Neither the FAA nor Duffy has said anything about a cyberattack, but at least one crew was hearing that word. A UPS 747 crew flying from Louisville, Kentucky, to Cologne, Germany, messaged their airline at 4:20 p.m. Eastern: "Hearing cyber attk issues on ATC freqs," according to messages shared by FlightDeck. That's what the crew heard, not a confirmed cause, so treat it with caution until the FAA says more. The backups are already showing on the ground. At O'Hare, where the trouble first grounded flights, more than 100 planes were reportedly sitting on taxiways and ramps, with departures lined up to free gates for arriving flights. If the stop drags on much longer, airlines may start letting passengers off planes that have been waiting to leave. **4:18 p.m. ET:** Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the nationwide ground stop, saying the FAA issued it "following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers." He said FAA technicians are investigating and the agency will share updates as it has them. There's still no word on a cause or on when flights will resume. Some early reports said the stop would last until at least 5 p.m. Eastern, but the FAA advisory itself says until further notice. **4:01 p.m. ET:** The FAA's command center ordered a national ground stop "due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety," according to an advisory shared by Flightradar24\. All departing traffic is to stay on the ground until further notice, and the advisory lists a window running until 11:30 p.m. Eastern. Despite some claims online, I haven't seen any order for planes already in the air to land immediately. They're being allowed to finish their flights. Before the national stop, FAA equipment problems had already started delaying departures in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Teterboro, and Kansas City's air traffic control center reportedly went into a ground stop around 3:30 p.m. Airline crews could tell something big was coming. Messages shared by [FlightDeck](https://www.tryflightdeck.com/?ref=thecontrail.org), an app that surfaces the text messages planes send to their airlines, show a Delta dispatcher warning one of its planes of a "possible nationwide ground stop coming" and telling the crew not to push back from the gate. A United crew in Boston told their airline they'd been ground stopped with no idea when they could leave. ![FlightDeck graphic of four airline crew and dispatcher messages about radio failures and ground stops](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ac/ed/acedfbb2-ff9c-499b-b431-eb36d7539be1/content/images/2026/11/IMG_0501.jpeg) Messages from airline crews and dispatchers as radios failed across US airspace. Credit: [FlightDeck](https://www.tryflightdeck.com/?ref=thecontrail.org) **3:41 p.m. ET:** The FAA put Chicago O'Hare and Chicago Midway under ground stops for an "equipment outage." Controllers at the facilities that handle planes over Boston, New York and Chicago, along with the facility that handles New York-area arrivals and departures, had reportedly lost numerous radio frequencies, the channels they use to talk to pilots. The trouble reportedly started around 3:15 p.m. --- ## A Former New York Center Chief Weighs In I sent the reports to my grandfather, Anthony Darienzo, who spent 25 years in air traffic control and ran New York Center, the facility that handles planes at cruising altitude over the New York area, before retiring in 1995\. His reaction says a lot about how unusual this is. "Serious radio problems," he told me. "I never saw any outage this widespread. Never in my career." He was blunt about what it means for the system. "Numerous frequencies across the national airspace are experiencing radio outages," he said. "This is a major problem." ## Know Before You Fly Get flight disruptions that affect your trip, free in your inbox. Get Contrail Free Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. --- ## What a Nationwide Ground Stop Means A ground stop holds flights at their departure airports so the system isn't overloaded while controllers deal with a problem. A nationwide one is extremely rare, because it freezes departures at every airport in the country at once. The last one came in January 2023, when the system the FAA uses to send safety notices to pilots failed. It's different from closing the airspace entirely, which is what happened after the Sept. 11 attacks, when every plane in the sky was ordered to land. That hasn't happened here. If you've never been through one, here's [what a ground stop actually is and how long they usually last](https://www.thecontrail.org/what-is-a-ground-stop/). Even once the stop lifts, expect a long night. Thousands of planes and crews will be out of position, and the delays will likely carry into Saturday. It comes right after Thursday's storms [sent about 150 flights to other airports](https://www.thecontrail.org/nyc-airport-delays-today-storm-ground-stop/) and an FAA equipment failure in September that [held flights to New York and Philadelphia on the ground](https://www.thecontrail.org/faa-equipment-outage-ground-stop-newark-jfk-laguardia/). Whether Friday's outage has anything to do with the [Microsoft outage](https://www.thecontrail.org/microsoft-outage-flights/) that has been hitting airline email since Thursday is still an open question. --- ## What to Do If You're Flying If you're flying tonight, don't head to the airport until your airline's app confirms your flight is still going. If you're already at the airport, stay near your gate, because flights could start moving quickly once the stop lifts. If your flight is canceled, you're owed a refund if you decide not to travel, and here's [what airlines owe you when a flight is canceled](https://www.thecontrail.org/flight-canceled-refund-rules/). Since this is an FAA problem rather than an airline one, airlines generally don't have to cover hotels or meals, though some may offer travel waivers to rebook for free.