The Federal Aviation Administration has halted every departing flight in America on Friday afternoon, citing “extraordinary circumstances” and “reasons of safety.”
An air traffic control advisory instructed: “All departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice.” It added: “Inbound international flights will be managed on a case by case basis.”
The order applies to departing traffic at airports across the United States, not merely at the handful of cities already under local restrictions. It does not, on its face, ground aircraft already airborne. Incoming international flights are being managed case by case rather than under a blanket ban.
A ground stop holds aircraft at their origin airports until the restriction is lifted. Travellers were given no public timetable for when take-offs may resume, only the instruction to remain grounded until further notice. The FAA has not said what the “extraordinary circumstances” were, and it has not immediately commented further. No official figure has been given for how many flights are affected.
Earlier on Friday, the FAA’s own status feed already showed equipment-outage ground stops in place at Chicago O’Hare and Midway, together with FAA-equipment delays at Newark, Houston, Orlando, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Teterboro. Separate delays for wind and airport volume were also being recorded at other major airports, including San Francisco and LaGuardia. The agency has not officially tied those earlier disruptions to the nationwide order.
As of 4:15 p.m. EST (21:15 GMT) on Friday, there was no public indication that the nationwide departure stop had been lifted. The FAA has not explained what forced the grounding, or when departing flights will be allowed to take off again. Until the FAA says otherwise, departing flights across America remain on the ground.
