US flight halt follows telecoms outage as Trump promotes Hollywood plan

The FAA grounded flights across the United States on Friday after a telecommunications outage, disrupting thousands of travellers’ plans. President Donald Trump had not publicly addressed the halt by Friday evening, while posting about legislation intended to revive the US entertainment industry; the contrast drew criticism.

The FAA said the pause was a precaution and that every flight had been accounted for, with international flights handled case by case. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication of a threat and described the problem as a communications outage. It was the first nationwide halt since a computer failure in January 2023, and the second since the September 11 attacks; officials had yet to give a clear timetable for restarting flights.