FAA grounds every US flight, pointing to an equipment outage

The Federal Aviation Administration slammed the brakes on every flight in the country Friday afternoon. In an alert from the Air Traffic Control System Command Center, the agency said departing aircraft cannot leave their gates and must remain on the ground until further notice. The message cited “extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” without elaborating.

The FAA’s own website pointed to an “equipment outage” as the cause — even as that site briefly went down, flashing a note that it was “experiencing technical difficulties.” The ATCSCC alert itself wasn’t visible on the command center’s website at press time. Inbound international flights will be “managed on a case-by-case basis,” the alert said.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on X that “FAA technicians are investigating the issue.” What actually knocked the equipment offline hasn’t been determined. An FAA spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The timing is awkward: the ground stop hit in the same week the administration rolled out an AI-powered tool for air traffic controllers aimed at saving flight time and fuel. Whether the outage connects to that rollout is unclear, according to TechCrunch.