FAA lifts nationwide ground stop after experiencing ‘instability' on Friday

A nationwide ground stop was in effect for several hours on Friday, leading to hundreds of delays and cancelations at PHL.

The Details

• By
• David Chang,
• David Charns and
• NBC Philadelphia Staff
• Published November 13, 2026
• Updated 1 hour ago

A nationwide ground stop forced all flights at the the Philadelphia International Airport to a standstill on Friday with hundreds of delays and cancelations.

The ground stop was issued because the system of radars and communication technology "experienced instability," according to United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. "It was old, legacy equipment that failed."

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European departures resumed at Philadelphia International Airport about two hours after the ground stop was issued, according to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) official.

The ground stop was finally lifted just before 8:30 p.m. but airlines were faced with ongoing schedule issues.

"By order of the Federal Aviation Command Center all airports are ground stopped," the FAA wrote on their website on Friday, Nov. 13, shortly before 4 p.m. E.T.

"All departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice. Inbound international flights will be managed on a case by case basis."

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy later posted on X that the ground stop was due to a communication issue.

The @FAAnews 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. — Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy)

• November 13, 2026
• Transportation and Transit
• University City

South Concourse at 30th Street Station reopens after major renovation SEPTA Nov 11 Why one man is riding every SEPTA Regional Rail line in just two days During a press conference around 5 p.m. ET, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said there was a "telecommunication outage throughout FAA."

“Out of an abundance of caution, we have grounded all the flights," Mullin said. "And all the flights are accounted for. As for incoming flights, either internationally or the flights that are currently still in the air, we’ll be dealing with those case by case. As you can imagine, there will be a priority list as they start coming in.”

Secretary Markwayne Mullin spoke at a press conference about the latest information on a nationwide ground stop at U.S. airports.

While Mullin noted that this was the first nationwide ground stop since the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, he also said there was no indication that Friday's outage was a "nefarious attack" against the U.S.

"It's just a telecommunication outage as of right now," he said.

Two congressional sources told NBC10 they have not been given any additional information beyond what Mullin said. They also confirmed it appears to be a computer issue rather than a cyberattack.

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Several planes remained at the gates at Philadelphia International Airport. Marc Maiolino, a passenger on one of the planes, spoke with NBC10 shortly after the ground stop was issued.

“We pulled away from the gate and we were literally in line to take off and then all of a sudden the pilot came on and said there was a ground stop,” Maiolino told NBC10.

Maiolino said the pilot later told them that there was a nationwide ground stop but had no additional information.

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The ground stop is impacting other modes of transportation. Amtrak posted on X around 5:30 p.m. ET that they were experiencing a higher than normal call volume due to the ongoing issue.

@jo117 We apologize for the error messages on both our website and app, as well as the difficulty reaching a representative. We're currently experiencing higher-than-normal call volumes due to ongoing airline issues. Furthermore, we recommend trying again later. Thank you. — Amtrak (@Amtrak)

Aviation expert speaks out

Aviation expert Arthur Wolk told NBC10 he believes the outage is disrupting some of the radio frequencies pilots use to speak with Air Traffic Control. He also said the thousands of flights that are currently in the air don't need to land immediately and that it's unlikely the outage could cause midair collisions.

"They don't depend on communications and therefore do not depend on air traffic control for navigation," Wolk said.

Wolk also told NBC10 pilots have several backup ways to communicate, including a newer system that works more like text messaging.

Cancelations and waivers from some airlines

JetBlue and

United announced that the airlines have canceled the rest of the planned flights for Friday because of the ground stop.

• Some airlines are offering waivers for travelers impacted by Friday's ground stop:
• United offers waiver
• Delta offers waiver
• American offers way to change flight
• What caused the ground stop

Duffy explained that once the routers became overloaded, it led to “instability for our radar and our communications in our centers, in our TRACONS throughout the country.”

TRACON stands for Terminal Radar Approach Control and is an air traffic control center.

“The TRACONS and the centers, we started to have inconsistency in the data from the radars and our communication with airplanes,” Duffy said.

That instability was detected at 3:36 p.m., he said.

Duffy said the FAA did not lose all telecom or radar capabilities but because of the instability, the ground stop was issued as a cautionary measure.

It’ll take time for the airspace to recover from the ground stop as crews and planes are out of place and staffers may have reached on-duty shift limitations. However, Duffy said he anticipates American airspace will catch up before Thanksgiving travel rush.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no sign of a cyberattack and the public was never in danger.

“FAA was able to handle it. We did it out of an abundance of caution,” he said in a news conference from the White House Friday night. Earlier on Friday, he described the issue as a telecommunications outage.

At the time of the ground stop, there were over 3,500 airplanes in the air, Duffy said. When the FAA issued the alert, 4,042 flights headed for U.S. destinations were airborne, according to Flightradar24, a Swedish service that displays real-time aircraft flight tracking information.

Friday’s ground stop is perhaps the most severe consequence of what Duffy described as a decades-old air traffic control system using analog equipment, which has led to several issues and outages over the past few years.

Duffy said the legacy equipment will continue to fail and pushed Congress to approve $50 billion to overhaul the system. Congress last year approved $12.5 billion over five years to upgrade air traffic control, Reuters reported.

Mullin said earlier Friday that President Donald Trump was briefed on the ground stop.

Mullin said though authorities cannot rule out a cyberattack, there was no evidence to suggest that. “There’s nothing completely certain right now. It doesn’t appear that way,” he said.

Meanwhile, Air Space Intelligence, the AI tech startup that is a vendor for the FAA on its new SMART system for air traffic control, insisted its software was not responsible for the nationwide ground stop.

“The current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC,” the company said in a statement posted to X.

Duffy said the SMART system is “completely disconnected” from the equipment that suffered issues Friday.