FAA grounds planes across US airports amid 'communication issues'

A Delta Airlines plane takeoff from San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in San Francisco, California, United States on October 13, 2026. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The Details

The Brief

The Federal Aviation Administration has halted departures at airports across the United States.

The halt has been attributed to "communication issues."

The nature of the issues has not been made clear, and there is no information about when flights may resume.

OAKLAND, Calif. — The Federal Aviation Administration has implemented a nationwide ground stop at multiple U.S. airports, citing communications issues.

An advisory posted on the FAA website stated

"Due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety. Attention all aircraft operators, by order of the Federal Aviation Command Center, all airports are ground stopped. All departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice. Inbound international flights will be managed on a case-by-case basis."

The nature of the communication issues is currently unknown. It is unclear when flights might resume.

Local perspective

"(The) FAA confirms a nationwide ground stop, although we don't know the nature of the outage. Aircraft already en route to SFO (are) landing here," a spokesperson for San Francisco International told KTVU.

Big picture view

United States Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy on Friday afternoon posted on X (formerly Twitter):

"The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers. FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them."

National Airspace System Status as of 1:15 Friday afternoon, listed ground stops at airports in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, and San Diego, among others.

Dig deeper

The FAA has issued two ground stops in the last 25 years.

Most recently on Jan. 11, 2023, when domestic departures nationwide were temporarily halted because of a failure involving the FAA's Notice to Air Missions system, which provides pilots with critical safety information. The ground stop was issued at 7:15 a.m. Eastern time and was lifted two hours later.

In that instance, more than 10,000 flights were delayed and more than 1,00 flights were canceled.

That incident was the first nationwide ground stop of its kind since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

This is developing, check back for updates.

The Source

Information for this story was gathered from the FAA and a spokesperson for San Francisco International Airport.