The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday lifted a nationwide ground stop halting departing flights, an order it issued citing “extraordinary circumstances and safety reasons.”
The shutdown, which grounded thousands of flights across the country, was lifted Friday evening after five hours, making it the longest ground shutdown in 25 years.
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It was also the second domestic ground stop of all departures since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
“Everyone is safe,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said, adding that it was not “another 9/11” and that there was no suspicion of a cyberattack.
Here’s what we know:
What happened?
The FAA ordered a nationwide shutdown at 3:54 p.m. Eastern Time (8:54 p.m. GMT) on Friday due to a telecommunications outage affecting air traffic control centers, which handle flights crossing the country.
The FAA confirmed that nationwide ground control had been lifted.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said airspace reopened at 8:15 p.m. ET (0115 GMT Saturday), after more than four hours of disruption.
“We have opened the airspace,” Duffy said, warning that flights would not resume immediately.
“It’s going to be slow,” he added, urging passengers to check with their airlines.
Duffy said flights would resume based on the availability of pilots and flight attendants, with authorities trying to move as many flights as possible Friday evening.
Aviation analytics firm Cirium said that after 4 p.m. ET (9 p.m. GMT) on Friday, about 11,000 flights carrying more than 1.5 million passengers were still scheduled to depart from U.S. airports.
As of 7:05 p.m. ET (00:05 GMT Saturday), at least 827 flights had been diverted, according to Cirium. Of these, 670 returned to their departure airport, while 157 were diverted elsewhere.
Planes already in flight were allowed to continue to their destination and land during the ground stopover.
During the ground stopover, international flights were treated on a case-by-case basis, with some allowed to take off despite the restrictions.
How many flights were affected?
More than 4,700 flights were canceled and 10,000 delayed on Friday, while another 700 had already been canceled on Saturday, according to FlightRadar24.
Aviation analysts said it could take days for airlines to restore their schedules.
Reporting from Los Angeles International Airport, Al Jazeera’s John Hendren spoke with passenger Nicholas Erdodi, who was from New Zealand and trying to reach Chicago for a conference.
Erdodi said he traveled for 16 to 18 hours before spending another six hours at the airport, where passengers were forced to leave their planes.
“The challenge is you can’t ask anyone here what to do,” he told Al Jazeera.
“It’s the lack of information that bothers me, I mean, not to mention finding the hotel for the night, not to mention the whole cost.”
Erdodi said he had been changed but still did not know if his next flight would take off.
“I work in the technology sector, I understand what could happen, but someone needs to tell us,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter if anyone tells us we don’t know what’s going on, but please let us know what’s going on,” he added.
What does a nationwide ground stop mean?
A nationwide ground stop temporarily requires departing planes to remain on the ground until they are cleared for takeoff.
Air flights are generally allowed to continue to their destination, but new departures are subject to strict orders to stay on the ground.
The measure aims to prevent any new aircraft from entering the airspace while authorities deal with safety concerns.
What caused the FAA National Ground Shutdown?
The FAA said the ground shutdown was caused by a telecommunications outage affecting air traffic control systems.
Duffy said the outage was caused by switches and routers being overloaded with data and crashing, adding that the incident did not involve a complete loss of communications capabilities or radar.
Tony Stanton, a former senior executive at the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority, told Al Jazeera that a US government report released in September warned of problems with aviation infrastructure before these latest disruptions.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) report highlights aging copper cables dating back to the 1960s and warns that delays in upgrading the system could lead to further disruption.
He also noted that while the FAA tried to implement changes, officials prioritized speeding up the process and failed to properly plan for changes, which meant the changes often happened at the same time and overwhelmed the system.
Officials admitted Friday that new technologies added to the country’s air traffic control system were overloading outdated parts of it and causing “intermittent” communications and radar gaps.
Where was it most affected?
Todd Curtis, an aviation safety expert and chief executive of AirSafe.com, told Al Jazeera that the failures appeared to be concentrated in the country’s air traffic control centers.
“There are 21 across the United States, one in Alaska and the other 20 in the lower 48,” he said.
“These are the people who manage the planes that transit from one part of the country to another, and they rely on multiple handoffs between controllers.”
Speaking before Duffy provided more details, Ron Bartsch, a professor of international aviation law at the University of the South Pacific, raised questions about the apparent failure of backup systems.
“The entire aviation community relies on redundancy,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The fact that a redundant system was not put in place immediately raises more questions than we have seen answered at this point.”
Mullin said there have been no ground control-related cyberattacks nationwide and the public has never been in danger.
Duffy acknowledged that tens of thousands of travelers were stranded and called for $50 billion in modernization of the country’s air traffic control system.
When will US flights return to normal?
About 3,000 flights landed safely following the order, Mullin said.
But Duffy cautioned that “it will take us some time to get back to capacity,” but he expects operations to be “up and running again as we enter the heat of travel over Thanksgiving.”
The Thanksgiving travel period, which begins in less than two weeks, is typically one of the busiest times of the year for U.S. air travel.
Aviation safety expert Curtis also warned that disruptions could continue to affect passengers even after technical issues are resolved.
“If the problem is fully resolved, it will take more than a day to return to normal and reschedule flights,” he told Al Jazeera.
He explained that many airlines operate interconnected networks, meaning passengers often have to change planes at major hubs.
“So there might be a bit of hassle from the airlines trying to figure out how to get everyone where they need to go,” he said.
Passengers are advised to check the status of their flight directly with their airline as delays and cancellations may continue.
Could another nationwide ground stop happen?
Experts warn that America’s aging air traffic control system is still highly susceptible to further disruption.
Duffy acknowledged the aging infrastructure.
“We have old switches, old routers. We’re using little copper lines from the 1980s. It’s an old system that was failing everywhere. It was overloaded,” he said.
Stanton, the aviation expert, questioned why officials said they didn’t anticipate an outage when the risks were identified.
“It’s incredibly surprising to me when a report released only in September absolutely speaks to the current risk we’re seeing today,” he said.
He added that the FAA needs better contingency plans to prevent future technical failures from causing disruptions.
“These are things that can be predicted, anticipated, and we should have plans in place for the system to have a minor impact rather than the major impact that we’re seeing today,” Stanton said.
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