All flights departing US grounded by Federal Aviation Administration due to ‘extraordinary circumstance’

All flights departing the US have been grounded by the US Federal Aviation Administration “due to extraordinary circumstance and reasons for safety”.

The FAA ordered the national ground stop shortly after it halted traffic in Chicago due to air traffic control communications issues.

“All departing traffic should remain ground stopped until further notice,” the agency said.

The announcement means planes in the air may land, but aricrafts on the ground cannot take off.

Flight tracking service FlightAware said nearly 7,000 flights were delayed or cancelled due to the nationwide ground stop.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the incident, believed to be caused by a “communication issue”, was being investigated.

“The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop for all US airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centres. FAA technicians are investigating the issue,” he said.

“We will provide immediate updates as we have them.”

Meanwhile, US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin reassured passengers were not in danger as there was so far no indication of a nefarious act.

“We had no reason to believe that — as of right now, that this was a threat to the United States,” he told reporters in Washington.

“It’s just a telecommunications outage … everybody’s safe. There’s no reason to be concerned about your loved ones if they’re flying.”

When asked if the incident could have been caused by a cyber attack, Mr Mullin said this isn’t “another 9/11” adding that officials would not yet rule any potential causes.

Friday’s halt was the second nationwide ground stop of all departures since the September 11, 2001, attacks. The other happened in January 2023, when the FAA paused all domestic departures for less than two hours.

More to come...