FAA imposes nationwide ground stop on all flights

On Friday afternoon, November 13, 2026, the Federal Aviation Administration imposed a nationwide ground stop, halting flight departures across the United States. The trigger was a “rolling frequency outage” affecting facilities responsible for monitoring aircraft already in the air. The disruption therefore involved communications or frequency systems used in air-traffic monitoring, rather than a weather event or a problem confined to one airport. The available details identify the outage as the reason for the stop but do not explain its technical cause.

The halt was confirmed through information from two FAA employees and documentation indicating that the restriction applied nationwide. The account describes departures as stopped and says the documentation confirmed a halt on all air traffic, underscoring the broad scope of the measure. It does not specify how many flights were affected, how long the ground stop lasted, whether aircraft already airborne had to change course, or when normal operations resumed. It also provides no further statement from the FAA or details about the response to the outage.