A nationwide ground stop ordered Friday halted flights across the country, including at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, marking only the second such stoppage in the U.S. since the Sept. 11 attacks. The previous ground stop occurred in 2023 after an outage disrupted the Federal Aviation Administration system that sends safety messages to pilots.
Friday's action followed "communication issues impacting multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers," according to officials. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication a national security threat caused the outage, though he did not rule out any possible cause, including a cyberattack.
"There is no indication that we've had, no reason to believe, that as of right now this was a threat to the United States," Mullin told reporters at the White House. He later repeated there was "no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack against us."
Mullin said all flights were accounted for and that aircraft already in the air were being handled on a "case by case" basis. Officials have not provided a timeline for resolving the ground stop as flight cancellations continue to climb.
Sources: FOX5 Vegas
Original reporting: 8 News Now →
English (US)·