Ground stop issued at all US airports including in Charlotte: What we know

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - A ground stop was issued on Friday for all airports in the United States, preventing any flights from departing.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday, Nov. 13 issued a ground stop for airports across the nation. The ground stop was in place as of about 4:11 p.m. on Friday.

The ground stop was issued “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” the FAA advisory said. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that there was a “communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.”

All departing flights were to “remain ground stopped until further notice,” the ground stop notice said. Secretary Duffy said FAA technicians were investigating.

The Charlotte Douglas International Airport was impacted by the ground stop. Airport officials told WBTV that the ground stop was related to “an FAA equipment outage.”

Inbound flights were still allowed to land, the Charlotte airport said.

There were a total of 421 flight delays at Charlotte Douglas, as of about 4:40 p.m. Friday, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware. The airport was experiencing departure delays of an average of “1 hours 2 minutes (and increasing),” at that time, FlightAware said.

Some reports said that thousands of flights had been delayed across the U.S.

Travelers were encouraged to check their flight statuses with their airlines directly.

The FAA said that inbound international flights would be handled on a case-by-case basis.

There have been only two nationwide ground stops issued in modern history.

The most recent was in January 2023, when a malfunctioning FAA computer system prompted a nationwide ground stop.

Prior to that, a nationwide ground stop was issued after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.