Public Safety · Valley-wide
FAA orders a rare nationwide ground stop after a telecommunications outage, the first such halt since January 2023
The FAA halted flights nationwide Friday after what Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin called a telecommunications outage, as the agency works through a $12.5 billion effort to modernize air traffic control.
Listen to this brief · 4 min
Read aloud by an AI voice from the text below. Download MP3
What happened
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop on Friday, KTNV reported. The station described the step as so unusual that it has happened only a few times in recent history.
What set this event apart was its reach. According to KTNV, a communications failure affected air traffic control centers across the country, rather than a single region or airport.
What officials said about the cause
Not linked to the Microsoft outage
The ground stop came one day after a large global Microsoft outage that disrupted communication services worldwide, KTNV reported. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the timing was a coincidence and that the Microsoft outage was a separate issue.
No sign of an attack
Mullin said Friday there was no indication the event was a nefarious attack on the United States, according to KTNV. He described it as "just a telecommunications outage."
Why nationwide ground stops are so rare
Aviation expert Reed Yadon told KTNV that this was the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023, when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned. Before that, the last one followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Different causes, similar result
Yadon said the 2023 event was an equipment failure, so the cause differed from Friday's, but the outcome was the same. "You've got to stop handling aircraft," he told KTNV, explaining that planes must be brought down before the system is restored and flights are fed back in.
He added that delays compound the longer the system is down. "The longer we're shut down, the longer it's gonna take to straighten it out," Yadon said.
How it compares with 9/11
Yadon contrasted Friday's event with the 2001 shutdown, when rogue aircraft were flying into buildings and authorities were unsure what other threats existed. "This one's a lot different," he told KTNV.
The FAA's modernization effort
The outage arrives while the FAA is spending $12.5 billion to rebuild an air traffic control system that still depends on decades-old technology, KTNV reported. The agency aims to replace aging radar, copper wiring and other outdated equipment by 2028.
The FAA says 68 percent of its old copper telecommunications network has been replaced with fiber. Yadon cautioned that the newer setup can still have a serious weak point, since fiber now links most of the centers. "You take out a couple of the main hubs and the whole thing collapses," he said.
The Las Vegas connection
While nationwide stops are rare, regional restrictions are not, KTNV noted. Las Vegas saw one this summer, when a controller shortage led the FAA to slow flights into Harry Reid.
According to KTNV, those regional slowdowns can be triggered by staffing, weather or equipment problems. Friday's event differed mainly in scale. Readers can find more on how federal and local agencies handle disruptions in our public safety coverage.
What to watch next
- How long it takes the FAA to bring the system back up and return flights to normal schedules, which Yadon said depends on the length of the shutdown.
- Progress on the FAA's $12.5 billion modernization, which aims to replace aging radar, copper wiring and other equipment by 2028.
- Replacement of the remaining copper telecommunications network, with the FAA reporting 68 percent converted to fiber so far.
