The latest:
Every departure from a US airport was ordered held on the ground Friday afternoon after radar systems and controller communication frequencies failed simultaneously at all 22 regional air traffic control centers. The Federal Aviation Administration cited extraordinary circumstances and safety considerations. FlightAware counted more than 9,000 delayed US flights during the day, though not all were tied to the outage.
Details:
- The order: The FAA told airlines all departing flights must stay on the ground until further notice, covering domestic and international departures including flights bound for Israel. Aircraft already airborne continued and landed on controller instructions, and inbound international arrivals were handled case by case.
- The failure: A source familiar with the aviation situation told CNN that both the radar systems controllers use and the frequencies they talk to pilots on were disrupted at the same time in scattered locations nationwide. According to that source, controllers themselves did not know what was happening inside the systems.
- The government response: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the problem affected all 22 regional centers that route aircraft between airports, and that FAA technicians were working to locate its source. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said nothing indicated a cyberattack or hostile act, describing it as a communications failure.
- Passenger safety: Mullin said there was no known risk to passengers in the air, telling the public: “Everyone is safe. There is no need to worry about your loved ones if they are flying.” He said the investigation was continuing and the cause was not yet known.
- The scale: Cirium reported at least 600 flights diverted by 5:50 p.m. Eastern, with 496 returning to their origin airport and 104 sent elsewhere, including O’Hare, Denver, Dallas Fort Worth and Reagan National. Roughly 11,000 flights carrying more than 1.5 million passengers had been scheduled to depart after 4 p.m.
- The timing: The outage began shortly before 4 p.m. in New York and the order was initially written to run until 11 p.m. Eastern. The FAA said that was a time frame for the directive, not an estimate of the fault’s duration, and set no official resumption time.
- Cargo and spillover: FedEx said it was ready to activate contingency plans and would resume normal operations once the FAA allowed it; US carriers move about 61,000 tons of freight daily, according to Airlines for America. Mexico’s aviation agency said the FAA asked it to ground US-bound aircraft.
- Carrier impact: Delta said no Delta flights were departing while airborne flights continued. Alaska Airlines said intra-Alaska, inter-Hawaii and West Coast-Hawaii flights were unaffected. The FAA did not say which airports would be released first once the system is restored.
- The AI question: Investigators will examine any link to SMART, an artificial intelligence system expanded Tuesday to all 22 regional centers that analyzes roughly 200 data sources. Officials said there is no evidence connecting it to the outage; it issues recommendations from a single Washington-area hub and does not control aircraft or radar.
- Infrastructure gap: Congress approved 12.5 billion dollars last year to modernize the system, including replacing aging copper cables with fiber optics. Duffy said completing the project requires roughly 30 billion dollars more, and the administration warns the network stays vulnerable to outages without a major upgrade.
Background:
Last year, repeated radar and communications failures struck controllers at Newark Liberty International, traced by CNN to a faulty copper cable later replaced with fiber optic. Several controllers took trauma leave, deepening staffing shortages. A September communications fault disrupted hundreds of flights in the northeast.
Between the lines:
Aviation experts assess the current failure may also trace to aging infrastructure, while stressing there is not yet enough information to determine the cause. The simultaneous loss of radar and frequencies across all 22 centers, rather than at one facility, points to something broader than the single-cable Newark pattern. The longer departures stay frozen, the more aircraft and crews end up out of position, pushing delays into airports never touched by the fault.
What’s next
The FAA has set no resumption time. Watch for technicians identifying the fault source, the investigation into any SMART link, and knock-on cancellations two weeks before Thanksgiving, when carriers expect about 2.7 million passengers daily.
