Ground Stop

Ground Stop 3:36 PM ET Normal Traffic

Stop: 4 h 0 min

Time: +0h 00m

Airborne: 3,500 Waiting departures (model): 0

Stop lifts at: 7:36 PM ET Backlog clears at: 2:29 AM ET (10 h 53 min after the stop began)

Stopped 4 h 0 min · cleared 10 h 53 min after it began

What happened

On Friday, November 13, 2026, the FAA stopped departures nationwide after an air traffic telecommunications outage.
Ground stops at Chicago O'Hare and Midway for an equipment outage came first.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed overloaded routers that “experienced instability” beginning at 3:36 p.m. Eastern, when over 3,500 flights were airborne over the U.S.
Officials said there was no indication of malicious activity at this early stage.
The stop was lifted in the evening, about four hours later.

Sources: The Air Current · ABC7 New York · NBC News · WGN

Thank you to the controllers and pilots working through it.