The Federal Aviation Administration says airplane departures can resume

A presumption of the baggage assertion country astatine Harry Reid International Airport aft a nationwide crushed halt Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. The FAA grounded each flights nationwide owed to communications problems astatine determination aerial postulation power centers, officials said. Photo by: Steve Marcus / Las Vegas Sun

WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration grounded each flights nationwide Friday day due to the fact that of communications problems astatine determination aerial postulation power centers.

The FAA announcement said the crushed halt was being imposed “due to bonzer circumstances and for reasons of safety.”

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said determination is simply a communications contented affecting the 22 determination aerial postulation power centers that nonstop planes en way betwixt airports nationwide. He said FAA technicians are investigating. This is the archetypal nationwide crushed halt since January 2023, erstwhile a cardinal FAA machine strategy malfunctioned. Before that the past clip had been aft the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said determination was nary denotation yet that "this was a nefarious onslaught against us. It's conscionable a telecommunications outage."

“Everybody's safe. There's nary crushed to beryllium acrophobic astir your loved ones if they're flying,” Mullin said.

There is nary timeline for restarting flights. Mullin said investigators volition look astatine whether determination is immoderate nexus to the FAA's nationwide rollout of a caller artificial quality strategy to assistance place problems and reroute planes. But that strategy operates retired of 1 determination adjacent Washington, D.C., and conscionable sends recommendations to the aerial postulation power centers.

The authorities has been moving to overhaul the outdated exertion that aerial postulation controllers trust connected since Congress approved $12.5 cardinal for the task past year. Miles of aged copper wires person been replaced with fibre optic lines and aged vigor systems are gradually being replaced astatine airports crossed the country.

But overmuch enactment remains. Duffy has said that different $30 cardinal volition beryllium needed to implicit the work, and the White House has begun lobbying Congress to o.k. it.

The occupation appeared akin to a determination aerial postulation power connection outage successful September that snarled hundreds of flights crossed the Northeast, aviation information adept Steve Arroyo said, but this clip connected a nationwide scale. It whitethorn beryllium linked to the outdated exertion utilized by aerial postulation controllers.

“If you don’t person that ability, whether it’s due to the fact that the aged wires that they person are conscionable tally down oregon for immoderate reason, you’ve got to halt airplanes connected the ground,” said Arroyo, who is simply a erstwhile United Airlines pilot. “And not enactment them successful the aerial wherever you’re going to hazard not being capable to pass with them.”

Friday’s crushed halt was antithetic than the 1 aft Sept. 11 due to the fact that planes were not being told to onshore instantly and pilots apt were capable to pass with crushed controllers astatine airports, Arroyo said.