US aviation authorities on Friday ordered a nationwide ground stop for all departing flights following a communication failure affecting air traffic control centres, causing disruption and confusion among travellers across the country.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the order was issued after a technical problem affected communications across all Air Route Traffic Control Centres.

In a statement, the agency said its technicians were investigating the problem.

“The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop for all US airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers,” the agency said.

“FAA technicians are investigating the issue.”

The nationwide grounding is relatively rare, as similar restrictions in recent years have generally been limited to individual airlines and lasted a few hours or less.

In January 2023, the FAA ordered a nationwide ground stop following an outage involving its Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, which provides pilots with critical information about hazards, changes to airport facilities and other developments that could affect flight operations.

The disruption lasted just under two hours and was considered at the time to be the first nationwide flight grounding since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Friday’s incident came a day after US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy formally requested $30.1 billion from Congress to upgrade and modernise the country’s air traffic control system.

In a letter to lawmakers, Duffy and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought described the proposed investment as essential to strengthening the nation’s aviation infrastructure.

“This investment is critical to complete the modernization of our national airspace — delivering a resilient telecommunications backbone for air traffic controllers, modern hardware and software, state-of-the-art control towers, and world-class airport infrastructure,” they wrote.

The impact of the grounding was already being felt at airports, with passengers at Las Vegas airport reportedly informed by Southwest Airlines check-in staff that no flights would be taking off for 24 hours.

…Canadian Affairs

US grounds all departing flights over communication failure

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