The US Federal Aviation Administration on Friday issued an advisory that prevents the takeoff of flights in US airspace, creating chaos for travelers and airports.
"The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers," said US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in a statement. "FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them."
A spokesperson at the FAA press office reached by phone said he was unable to provide further information. And an email response from the agency repeated Duffy's statement.
The FAA ATCSCC advisory halts departing flights and says international flights will be dealt with individually.
The notice says, "Due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety. Attention all aircraft operators, by order of the Federal Aviation Command Center all airports are ground stopped. All departing traffic should remain stopped until further notice. Inbound international flights will be managed on a case by case basis."
Doug Yakel, public information officer for San Francisco International Airport, said, "FAA confirms nationwide ground stop, other reporting indicates a communications issue between Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCCs). Aircraft already enroute to SFO still landing here but departing aircraft not taking off right now."
An update issued at 2:02 pm PT described the problem as "a temporary telecommunications outage."
The FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI) is managed by L3Harris. The network provides secure communication between more than 4,400 facilities.
The grounding follows on the heels of a major Microsoft outage that has affected many Microsoft-hosted services, particularly email, for more than 24 hours so far. There's no indication presently that the two incidents are related.
We'll update this story as more information becomes available.®
CBS News reports that “an update to the private communications network that connects America’s air traffic control system caused the system to reboot. When the FAA’s telecommunication infrastructure rebooted, it crashed, causing the communications outage. The system is operated by L3Harris.”
L3Harris has not responded to a request for comment.
Air Space Intelligence (ASI), awarded the FAA’s $875 million, 12-year contract for its new Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories (SMART) system, has issued a statement asserting that its products played no role in the FAA’s flight suspension. “The current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC,” the company said.