Transport · Washington, New York, and Warsaw

FAA halts all US departures for four hours after data overload hits air traffic control

All departures from US airports were halted on Friday, 13 November, and lifted after about four hours. More than 7,000 flights were reported delayed or canceled, and PLL LOT's three return flights to Warsaw have since departed.

AI text based on reports by naTemat.pl, Nasz Dziennik, rmf24.pl and other publishers. Published today at 09:40. How it is made

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In brief

Washington, New York, Warsaw · United States, Poland

How it came to this

Friday, 13 November, around 21:00 Polish timeFAA orders a nationwide halt to all departures from US airports
Friday, 13 November, 22:30 New York timeFlightAware counts about 8,200 flights canceled
Saturday, 14 November, morningPLL LOT says all three return flights to Warsaw have departed

What happened on Friday

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a nationwide halt to all departures from US airports on Friday, 13 November, at around 21:00 Polish time. The order followed communication failures that hit air traffic control centres across the country. Aircraft already in the air were allowed to land, but planes on the ground were not cleared to take off. Eurocontrol said air traffic to the United States from the states within its system was also suspended. The ground stop was lifted after about four hours.

Cause of the outage

Transport Secretary Sean Duffy told a press conference at the White House that outdated routers had been overloaded with data and had begun passing inconsistent information from radar and communications systems. He said the FAA had therefore shut the system down. The FAA said it could not guarantee enough system stability to keep departures running. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no evidence of a cyberattack or third-party involvement. He also said the failure was unrelated to the Microsoft service outage and that passengers were not at risk.

Flights and passengers affected

More than 3,500 aircraft were airborne when the order came, and Flightradar24 counted 4,042 including those heading to the United States. Reported figures for disrupted flights differ by source. One report in US media put the total at more than 7,000 delayed or canceled, while FlightAware counted about 8,200 cancellations by 22:30 New York time on Friday, with a similar number delayed. Fox News reported more than 8,500 delayed and 6,500 canceled. Some aircraft were diverted to other airports for lack of space, and passengers at crowded gates were held on board for hours.

Flights reported canceled or delayed on 13 November, by sourceflights

Data from the article text

LOT and airline recovery

PLL LOT said on Saturday morning that all three return flights to Warsaw had taken off once operations resumed. Departure delays ranged from 8 minutes for LO4 from Chicago and 40 minutes for LO27 from New York JFK to 4 hours and 30 minutes for LO22 from Los Angeles. Because the disruption affected the rotation of its Boeing 787 aircraft, LO65 from Warsaw to Bangkok and LO23 from Warsaw to Los Angeles could be delayed by about two hours. American Airlines and JetBlue warned on Saturday of further delays. Officials said the air traffic support systems would return to normal before the Thanksgiving holiday at the end of the month, although how long full recovery would take remained unclear.

A rare event

This was only the third nationwide ground stop in US history. Earlier halts followed the 11 September attacks and a January 2023 failure of the pilot warning system known as NOTAM. In that 2023 case the stop lasted several hours but caused cancellations and delays that cascaded over several following days.

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