Newshot US Hit by Nationwide Flight Grounding: 8,000 Flights Delayed + 3,100 Aircraft in the Air, FBI Preliminarily Rules Out Cyberattack
IT Home, November 14 — In the early hours of November 14 Beijing time, a large-scale communications failure struck the US air traffic control system. Within about half an hour, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) escalated a localized grounding to a nationwide ground stop, ordering all flights awaiting takeoff to remain on the ground until further notice.
The incident first occurred at Chicago O'Hare International Airport at 4:46 Beijing time and was expanded nationwide 11 minutes later. International flights bound for the US were handled on a case-by-case basis, while flights already in the air were allowed to land normally.
According to an Associated Press report on November 13, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed that the communications failure affected all 22 regional air route traffic control centers across the country. The FAA imposed a nationwide ground stop on safety grounds, ordering all flights awaiting takeoff to remain on the ground, while international flights bound for the US were handled individually based on specific circumstances.
According to the timeline disclosed so far, at 4:46 Beijing time, Chicago O'Hare International Airport was the first to report communications problems and implemented a ground stop. At 4:57, the FAA expanded the grounding to all airports nationwide, requiring flights awaiting takeoff to suspend departure until further notice.
At 5:08 Beijing time, the FAA linked the nationwide grounding to air traffic control frequency issues for the first time. At 5:17, Transportation Secretary Duffy further stated that the communications failure affected all air route traffic control centers nationwide, and FAA technicians had begun investigating.
At 6:01 Beijing time, US Homeland Security Secretary 马克韦恩 Mullin said in a White House briefing that there was no indication the grounding was caused by a threat actor. "This is a telecommunications disruption," he said, adding, "This is not another 9/11." He also disclosed that Transportation Secretary Duffy had communicated with President 特朗普 on the matter, and that 特朗普 had been briefed. FAA technicians had begun investigating the cause of the failure, but several hours after the grounding order was issued, a lifting time had still not been announced.
At almost the same time, the National Weather Service (NWS) also reported failures in its nationwide internet and communications systems, with technicians working to repair them and some website products possibly inaccessible or delayed. However, publicly available reports have not yet fully established a link between this failure and the FAA communications outage.
Asked whether Microsoft's incident yesterday was related to the Federal Aviation Administration's incident today (the nationwide grounding), Mullin said: I see no reason to connect the two. They are separate issues.
At 6:08 Beijing time, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that the FBI was investigating whether the air traffic control communications outage was triggered by a software update, and that the preliminary assessment was that it was not caused by a cyberattack or criminal act. Mullin said the possibility of a connection to AI-related technology being rolled out at air traffic control towers could not be ruled out, but while "ruling out nothing," he stressed that the public need not panic.
According to Reuters, the nationwide grounding has affected thousands of flights. Data from flight tracking site FlightAware showed that within a short time after the grounding order was issued, at least 8,000 flights had been delayed and 400 canceled across the US; FlightRadar24 showed that about 3,100 aircraft were en route to US airports when the grounding began.
The Associated Press reported that the FAA grounding involved all 22 regional air route traffic control centers across the US, and relevant technicians were investigating the communications failure.
As of 6:31 Beijing time, the FAA had not announced when the nationwide ground stop would be lifted. US transportation authorities said all aircraft that had already taken off had been accounted for, and international inbound flights would be handled on a case-by-case basis.
This is the first nationwide flight ground stop in the US since January 2023. On January 11, 2023, a failure of the FAA's Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system temporarily halted departures of domestic flights, causing widespread delays and cancellations. Further back, there was the full grounding after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The US government has been pushing to modernize its air traffic control system in recent years. The Associated Press previously reported that Congress had approved $12.5 billion (IT Home note: about 83.563 billion yuan at current exchange rates) for related projects, but system upgrades are still ongoing.
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