The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has grounded all flights in the U.S. for safety reasons after an issue with air traffic control communication.
According to multiple reports, the directive from Friday evening says all departing flights must remain on the ground until further notice.
Flights heading to the U.S. from Canada are also impacted. The FAA says inbound international flights will be managed on a case-by-case basis. But several major airports in Canada have suspended departures to the U.S., according to multiple reports.
Flightradar24, a live air traffic tracking website, says that some flights are being allowed to leave for international destinations amid the outage, but on a case-by-case basis.
Flights in the air will be allowed to land.
The cause is a “communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers,” according to a social media post from Secretary Sean Duffy, head of the Transportation Department.
He says FAA technicians are investigating and they will give updates when they can.
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
Multiple American media outlets are reporting that Homeland Security says the plane grounding and the Microsoft outage, which began Thursday and ended Friday, are unrelated.
Canadian flights impacted
Tiffany Chase, spokesperson with the Halifax Stanfield Airport, says they only have one flight heading to the U.S that is delayed at the moment.
She says any affected passengers should get the most up to date information directly from their airlines.
Chase did not have any further details.
Second ground stop in U.S. since 9/11
This is the second time all flights in the country have been grounded since the attacks on the Twin Towers on Sept. 11. The last time was in 2023, when the FAA halted flights for less than two hours, according to multiple reports.
More to come…
