FAA grounds all flights at U.S. airports due to air traffic control communications problems

The Federal Aviation Administration grounded flights across the United States on Friday afternoon after communications problems affected regional air traffic control centres. Officials said the stop was imposed for safety, leaving flights suspended while technicians investigated and with no timeline announced for their restart.

The outage affected the 22 centres that guide planes between airports. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication of a deliberate attack and described it as a telecommunications outage; officials were also checking for any connection to a new FAA artificial intelligence system. The nationwide stop was the first since a computer malfunction in January 2023, while a broader overhaul of ageing air traffic technology has $12.5 billion in approved funding and may need another $30 billion.