FAA issues nationwide ground stop on all departing flights

The Federal Aviation Administration announced Friday that it is imposing a nationwide ground stop on all departing flights, "due to extraordinary circumstance and reasons for safety."

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the order impacted all American airports and comes after a communication issue impacted all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.

"FAA technicians are investigating the issue," he said on X. "We will provide immediate updates as we have them."

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters that there is "no indication" so far that the outage was caused by a "nefarious attack."

"This was a telecommunications outage throughout FAA," he said. "Out of an abundance of caution, we have grounded all the fights ... There is no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack."

He also indicated that flights will not resume immediately as the FAA investigates the incident. 

An air traffic control advisory reads: "All departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice. Inbound international flights will be managed on a case-by-case basis," according to Axios.

Nationwide ground stops are incredibly rare, with the last being on January 2023, when a pilot notification system went down, according to CNN. Before that, it was the ground stop issued for the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001.

This story is developing. Please check back for updates.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.