alt Hacker NewsFAA issues national ground stop
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Info on this is amazingly sparse. Apparently Sec. Duffy posted something on X/Twitter, and that's all the news media have.
Looking at LAX departures, it looks like nothing has departed since about 10:30 AM PST, and everything later is showing Delayed or Cancelled. There are times after Delayed, but it's not clear those times mean anything. Some are now in the past.
"flysfo.com" is too overloaded to display departures. Stuck at "loading...".
JFK departure status shows almost solid "Delayed".
No good explanations anywhere.
starting to see some explanations for what's going on
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/faa-temporarily-halts-flights-ac...
> The outage appears to be affecting a telecommunications network overseen by L3Harris Technologies, according to people briefed on the matter. The network handles crucial radio frequencies that air-traffic controllers use to communicate with pilots, the people said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the outage also affected the radar feeds that controllers use to keep aircraft safely separated in the skies.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/faa-issues-nationwide-ground-st...
> An update to the private communications network that connects America's air traffic control system caused the system to reboot, leading to a crash and a communications outage, multiple sources told CBS News. The system is operated by L3Harris, which did not immediately respond to CBS News' request for comment.
> An update to the private communications network that connects America's air traffic control system caused the system to reboot, leading to a crash and a communications outage, multiple sources told CBS News. The system is operated by L3Harris, which did not immediately respond to CBS News' request for comment.
Secretary Mullin/DHS is confirming that this will likely be an extended outage...
> “This isn’t going to just be be resolved and turned around within the hour"
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/11/13/us/ground-stop-natio...
I'm watching it live on ADSBexhange, here's a flight I picked at random going approximately past me that'll land in Detroit about an hour from now... there's not much left over the US over 40,000 feet. Only 2 planes over Indiana at that altitude right now.
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a519b8
It's Delta Airlines flight 1070
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL1070
Edit: It landed safely. Continuing to watch our airspace clear out, most traffic at 40,000+ feet is inbound international flights
Anyone have a screen shot? I just see "NO Advisory"
edit: https://www.fly.faa.gov/ois/oisedit/adv_oisedit_dis?number=1...
I have no idea whether this particular failure was Microsoft's fault, but I was in the air on September 14, 2004 when a substantial portion of the southwestern US's air traffic control went down:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/lost-radio-contact-leaves-pilots-o...
(I was near ORD at the time, flying toward the outage area. We diverted to ORD, and the pilot was very friendly about it.)
At the time I thought it was Microsoft's fault, as Windows 95 and 98 were susceptible to crashing when GetTickCount() overflowed, and this ATC crash was due to a 32-bit millisecond counter on a Windows machine overflowing, but in this particular instance the system was apparently not running on a version of Windows with this particular bug and the failure was just an application error.
Aren't computers great? :)
On a plane about to take off and obviously we didn’t. The captain is very confused and says he doesn’t know what this means.
More info on AP [1]. Looks like a comms issue. The figures they quoted for the overhaul are absolutely insane - almost $45 billion (I used to work in telecom):
> "The government has been working to overhaul the outdated technology that air traffic controllers rely on since Congress approved $12.5 billion for the project last year."
> "Duffy has said that another $30 billion will be needed to complete the work, and the White House has begun lobbying Congress to approve it."
[1] https://apnews.com/article/flights-halted-airports-faa-f81b0...
Maybe I’m misremembering but hasn’t this only happened like, twice in recent memory? 9/11, and for like two hours two or three years ago
I wonder if this will close the Starship launch window starting at 5:45pm EST. The FAA issued the commercial launch license earlier today. That launch is under a separate set of "commercial space rules", but presumably they need to coordinate with air traffic control.
Update: Starship launched on schedule.
> DUE TO EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES AND FOR REASONS OF SAFETY
I'm sure there is a reason for it but can they not be a little bit more specific?
Connected? "US National Weather Service reports nationwide internet, communications issues" (Reuters) https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-national-weather-servi...
I do not really understand what the FAA means by “inbound international flights will be managed on a case by case basis.”
I am watching planes stacked up on final approach to land at KBOS as I type. From flight radar 24 they are a mix of foreign and domestic. So incoming flights are clearly being managed here.
Does this imply some potential risk from inbound international air traffic? Or maybe the FAA meant outbound? Something else I am missing?
Seems related to the rollout of their new AI tool? [0]
[0]https://gizmodo.com/the-faa-is-rolling-out-its-ai-air-traffi...
My wife is on a plane on the ground at ORD (they just landed) and they have been told they can use the restrooms but can't get off the planes. Any reason why folks wouldn't be allowed to deplane at the end of the journey if it was a radar or comms issue? They can pull up to the gate using flags . . .
Is it something else?
Wonder if this is related upstream or tangentially?:
https://www.news9.com/oklahoma-city-news/national-weather-se...
AT&T is experiencing a massive outage. Appears they are the provider for the Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCCs).
NWS radar and 911 systems are also showing downtime according to https://downdetector.com/
Oh cool, I’m on a plane rn about an hour from my destination.
Edit) landed pretty uneventfully.
Use this link for latest advisory: https://www.fly.faa.gov/adv/
Current as of 1340 PDT:
ATCSCC ADVZY 117 DCC 11/13/2026 ALL CENTERS EXTENDED FLIGHT PLAN DROP TIMES IMPLEMENTED
MESSAGE:
EVENT TIME: 13/2120 - 14/0500
CONSTRAINED FACILITIES: ZTL
DCC HAS IMPLEMENTED EXTENDED FLIGHT PLAN DROP TIMES TO 240 MINUTES
FOR ALL ENROUTE CENTERS DUE TO NATIONWIDE COMMS FAILURE.
EFFECTIVE TIME: 132121-140530
SIGNATURE: 26/11/13 21:21Likely Atc system outage, saw this at Chicago
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/ground-stop-chicago-oha...
Related? https://nasstatus.faa.gov/ has a notice:
We are experiencing technical difficulties. We apologize for the inconvenience but please check back soon, as we are working to have the issues resolved.
Thank you, FAA Web Operations Team
From earlier this week on HN:
“FAA says it will phase out floppy disks from air traffic control”
dumb question but do the airport gates get "too full" if all plans are grounded? Do airports sort of expect some constant turnover to have enough open gates to service everything? Do you end up with a line of plans waiting for a gate?
Maybe just paranoia but it seems slightly suspicious for this to happen while we are in the middle of discussing massive funding and overhauls to the air traffic control systems. This will certainly end up pushing a lot more funding into these programs and companies now that were trying to sell more expensive systems.
maybe unrelated but, I just noticed my LAX region server with Fly is experiencing issues
https://status.flyio.net/incidents/01M76HANB3XQC6WYKPA69WQN8...
If a lot of planes on the ground were prohibited from taking off, but couldn't get back to their gates due to congestion/traffic, where will the planes go that are still in the air and ultimately land? Just disembark passengers out on the tarmac? (hopefully with some sort of bus pickup)
It is hard to not rapidly spiral into pure conspiracy theory territory, but one has to ask how many "black swan" events can you accept within a period of a few days before you start to question things?
A sequence of events:
- Democrats win congress : it sets a clock to act before January
- Jensen is taken out, throwing nVidia into chaos
- Email comms are blacked out for an entire day across government and major enterprises
- Air traffic is stopped nation wide the next day
Just announced at Honolulu airport that flights to the west coast will be released
I've just watched a plane take off from seattle.
About 15 mins ago I got off BART at Daly City and a plane took off from SFO and flew overhead. Didn't look like anything special, just a regular passenger jet to me.
Looks lifted now? Not showing for me. https://www.fly.faa.gov/adv/adv_otherdis?adv_date=11132026&a... https://www.fly.faa.gov/adv/adv_otherdis?adv_date=11132026&a...
Edit: screenshot here: https://i.postimg.cc/XqcsDQw9/image.png Edit 2: different link still showing: https://www.fly.faa.gov/ois/oisedit/adv_oisedit_dis?number=1...
From the Financial Times:
> Los Angeles Airport and Las Vegas’s Harry Reid International were among those that were closed, according to a list on the regulator’s website.
> The outages at O’Hare and Midway were listed as “due to equipment outage”.
https://www.ft.com/content/c9b119ff-d1da-46a7-b2b3-4ad0544ff...
Is this still real? It says NO Advisory now :\
Listening to SFO Tower, the latest info I’ve heard is an expected stop until 04:00 UTC, but flights departing to Asia via west departure may be permitted to depart.
I set up a basic tracker here.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vThhccsTanAz...
AI is updating it hourly. Since it is AI, always verify yourself.
FAA expands AI advice to manage air traffic congestion across entire US airspace https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/11/faa-expands-ai-advice-to-...
What does this mean outside of the US, I.e. I suspect planes that should be in places abroad won't be so ongoing cancellations and crew in wrong places etc.
Is conjecture allowed? I have no evidence of this, but I've noticed that often before big meetings between superpowers one side or the other seems to do a minor or subtle attack as a kind of sabre-rattling/warning to the other side to try to gain leverage (and show them they're not to be trifled with). So with that, I wonder if this is a China/NVIDIA accusation connection.
But I'm completely just spitballing here.
matches with the Doomsday post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50482379 :)
Likely some power outage connected to a critical main fiber connection somewhere..
Botched rollout of AI for ATC announced yesterday as rolling out nationwide?
> The agency wrote on Nov. 10 that after the D.C. test, it will “now use SMART in the airspace of all 22 centers across the country to reduce delays, reduce fuel consumption and improve the travel experience for the flying public.” The tech was already being deployed at some airports.
https://gizmodo.com/the-faa-is-rolling-out-its-ai-air-traffi...