US grounds all flights for hours, sparking travel chaos

NEW YORK (UPDATED) — The US grounded all flights for several hours Friday, sparking travel chaos across the vast country, after what government officials said was a major communications outage caused by decades old technology.

The nationwide stop left hundreds of thousands of passengers in limbo, with some pulled off planes moments before departure by airline staff who appeared in the dark about unfolding events.

The incident marked only the second time such an alert had been issued in US airspace since the 9/11 attacks.

Federal Aviation Authority officials lifted the groundstop after around four hours, with President Donald Trump’s administration saying there was no evidence the outage was the result of foul play.

“This is a legacy system problem,” said Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. “We have old, old switches, old routers.

“We use 1980s little copper lines. It’s an old system that went down, and went down everywhere. It got overloaded.”

Duffy on Thursday had formally asked Congress for $30.1 billion in funds to upgrade and modernize the US Air Traffic Control System.

As the groundstop was lifted he repeated his plea.

“I’m going to say it a million times: the Congress has to give the resources to the president so he can finish this bill,” he said.

With almost 6,000 flights canceled including some international routes according to FlightAware, the recovery from the stoppage was expected to take some time.

Footage from airports around the country showed gates full, with planes waiting on taxiways.

Passengers thronged concourses, desperate for information about an outage that had thrown their travel plans into chaos.

“We’re trying to debate whether or not we need to reschedule or drive or what, but if the whole country is stopped, that means the highways are going to be jammed too,” said Joseph Anderson, 72, who was trying to fly from Las Vegas to Oakland, California.

US airspace is among the busiest in the world, and is ramping up to its most frenetic as the Thanksgiving holiday moves into view.

A nationwide groundstop is highly unusual; there was one such stop in January 2023 when a pilot notification system failed, but the only other national stop happened in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, when no aircraft took to the skies for days.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin stressed there was no evidence of any hostile action on Friday.

“We’ve seen zero evidence that this was a cyber attack or (AI) attack,” he told a press conference.

He also ruled out any connection with the outage that affected Microsoft this week, knocking email systems offline for millions of users, public services and businesses worldwide.

The stop sparked chaos and misery at airports around the country.

At New York’s LaGuardia Airport, Tiara Johnson said she had been trying to get to Orlando for a concert with a friend.

“They just keep delaying it…So it started out at 7:55. Then it went to 8:30, 9:30. Now it’s at 10:30. So we don’t know when it’s gonna leave,” she told AFP.

“I feel very frustrated because you know, you come to the airport and then all of a sudden your whole plans have changed and you don’t know when you’re leaving. We’re kind of stuck.”

Travelers were left in the dark on the groundstop, with some saying they had been told their flight was delayed because of wind, while others were left to gather what information they could.

Boards at the airport continued to show departures leaving as normal, while mobile boarding passes held by those stuck on the ground appeared to show their flight was underway.

Stranded passengers were scrambling to find alternatives, with long lines forming at rental car counters at the airport in Las Vegas.

Susan Sardina said she had boarded her flight back to Orange County, California when staff told passengers there was a problem.

“We were already on our flight to leave and we were told to get off,” she told AFP as she stood in a lengthy queue for a rental car.

For those looking on the bright side, the delay was a chance to extend a break.

Kathy Sommers was on her way home from visiting friends in Las Vegas when her flight got canceled.

“We’re blessed that our friends are coming back to pick us up,” she said. “So one more night to play cards.”