The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights nationwide Friday afternoon due to communications problems at regional air traffic control centers, halting takeoffs at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and disrupting thousands of flights.

The ground stop was being imposed “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” according the FAA notice. The order means planes already in the air may land, but those on the ground cannot take off.

An estimated 170 scheduled departing flights at MSP Friday are affected, said Jeff Lea, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Airport Commission. He said incoming flights will continue to land at MSP over the next several hours.

“It’s a fluid situation at every U.S. airport,” Lea said.

“Passengers should stay in touch with their airlines for their flight status,” Lea said. “Otherwise, too early to tell” what the other impacts may be.

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Just before 3 p.m. at MSP, an MPR News journalist aboard a plane preparing for takeoff said flights there were halted. The pilot told passengers he had “never seen this before.”

Flight tracking service FlightAware said nearly 7,000 flights were delayed or canceled because of the ground stop as of 3:49 p.m.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a communications issue was affecting the regional air traffic control centers that direct planes between airports nationwide. He said FAA technicians are investigating.

This is the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023 when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned. Before that the last time had been after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication yet that “this was a nefarious attack against us. It’s just a telecommunications outage.”

All flights have been accounted for and international flights will be “handled on a case by case basis,” the FAA said. The ground stop order runs through at least 11 p.m. ET Friday.

Homeland security secretary says grounding all flights isn’t the same as Sept. 11

“There is no indication — and we had no reason to believe that — as of right now, that this was a threat to the United States,” Mullin said.

“This was a telecommunication outage,” Mullin told reporters outside the White House.

He said details were still emerging, but that the president had been briefed.

Mullin said the immediate priority was ensuring that planes still in the air would be landing safely, but that there was no clear information on how long the stoppage might last.

He also downplayed comparisons to the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001, saying, “This isn’t the same comparison to 9/11. That’s a road I won’t go down.”

Aviation safety expert says issue appears similar to September regional outage

Former United Airlines pilot and aviation expert Steve Arroyo said the problem appeared similar to a regional air traffic control communication outage in September that snarled hundreds of flights across the Northeast, except this time on a nationwide scale.

Arroyo said it could be linked to the outdated technology used by air traffic controllers.

“If you don’t have that ability, whether it’s because the old wires that they have are just run down or for whatever reason, you’ve got to stop airplanes on the ground,” said Arroyo. “And not put them in the air where you’re going to risk not being able to communicate with them.”

Collected from Minnesota Public Radio News. View original source here.