{"id":58224,"date":"2026-11-14T08:58:03","date_gmt":"2026-11-14T03:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=58224"},"modified":"2026-11-14T08:58:03","modified_gmt":"2026-11-14T03:13:03","slug":"us-lifts-nationwide-flight-ground-stop-after-major-air-traffic-system-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/us-lifts-nationwide-flight-ground-stop-after-major-air-traffic-system-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"US Lifts Nationwide Flight Ground Stop After Major Air Traffic System Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Reuters: The United States has lifted a nationwide ground stop on departing flights after a major technical failure disrupted air traffic control systems, resulting in the cancellation of around 4,700 flights and leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded.<\/p>\n

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted the restriction on Friday at 8:15 p.m. ET, following more than four hours of nationwide disruption. However, officials warned that flight operations would resume gradually and could take several days to return to normal.<\/p>\n

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the disruption began at 3:36 p.m. ET when air traffic control centres experienced instability in radar and communications systems.<\/p>\n

According to Duffy, overloaded switches and routers carrying critical data caused inconsistent information across the system, prompting the FAA to halt departures nationwide.\u00a0He said thousands of aircraft were able to land safely despite the disruption.<\/p>\n

More than 10,000 flights were delayed on Friday, while approximately 700 additional flights scheduled for Saturday had already been cancelled, according to FlightRadar24.<\/p>\n

Three sources said the technical problems involved a telecommunications network operated by L3Harris that handles radio frequencies used by air traffic controllers.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a White House briefing, Duffy called for $50 billion in investment to modernise the country’s air traffic control infrastructure. Earlier, the White House and the Transportation Department had requested $30.1 billion from Congress for system upgrades.<\/p>\n

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no evidence that the disruption was caused by a cyberattack or an uncontrolled artificial intelligence system. President Donald Trump also said there was no indication of a cyberattack.<\/p>\n

The incident marks the second nationwide ground stop affecting all departing flights since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The previous nationwide disruption occurred in January 2023, when the FAA suspended domestic departures for approximately 90 minutes due to a technical failure.<\/p>\n

The latest outage has highlighted longstanding challenges facing the US aviation system, including ageing technology, communication failures and a shortage of several thousand air traffic controllers.<\/p>\n

The disruption also affected airline stocks. Shares of American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines fell between 1 and 2 per cent in after-hours trading, while JetBlue dropped approximately 3 per cent.<\/p>\n

Although the nationwide restriction has been lifted, thousands of passengers remain stranded as airlines work to reorganise their schedules.<\/p>\n

Edward Kargbo, 50, from Westchester, Pennsylvania, was scheduled to fly from Newark, New Jersey, to Lom\u00e9, Togo, on an Ethiopian Airlines flight at 9 p.m. on Friday. Following the disruption, his flight was rescheduled, forcing him to spend the night at the airport.<\/p>\n

His revised departure was scheduled for 6 a.m. on Saturday.\u00a0\u201cI have to squat the night here. I’m stranded,\u201d he said, expressing hope that he would be able to continue his journey the following morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reuters: The United States has lifted a nationwide ground stop on departing flights after a major technical failure disrupted air traffic control systems, resulting in the cancellation of around 4,700 flights and leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted the restriction on Friday at 8:15 p.m. ET, following more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58224"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58224"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58227,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58224\/revisions\/58227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}