Flights halted at Burlington airport and across US due to air traffic control communications problems

The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights in Vermont and nationwide Friday afternoon because of communications problems at regional air traffic control centers.

The FAA notice said the ground stop was being imposed “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.”

Federal officials have not indicated the stoppage is related to a hack or other nefarious activity. 

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a communications issue is affecting the 22 regional air traffic control centers directing planes en route 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 that “this was a nefarious attack against us. It’s just a telecommunications outage.”

“Everybody’s safe. There’s no reason to be concerned about your loved ones if they’re flying,” Mullin said.

There is no timeline for restarting flights. Mullin said investigators will look at whether there is any link to the FAA’s nationwide rollout of a new artificial intelligence system to help identify problems and reroute planes. But that system operates out of one location near Washington, D.C., and just sends recommendations to the air traffic control centers.

The outage had stranded about 400 passengers in the terminal at Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport as of 5 p.m., according to Nic Longo, the airport’s director of aviation, who added that five aircrafts were on the ground with one confirmed cancellation. 

“We’re still holding onto a little bit of hope that things will get moving,” he told VTDigger, noting the last flight of the evening was scheduled to leave at 7:30 p.m. “We’ve got an awesome team, we’ve got a lot of contingencies in place.”

Longo said he did not know how long flights would be halted. He said that to his knowledge, the airport was not experiencing any communications issues. 

Passengers should contact their airlines to handle rebooking flights, Longo said. 

“People just need to be prepared, and we’re here to help,” he said.“ We just don’t have the answer either.”

Friday’s grounding appeared similar to a regional air traffic control communication outage in September that snarled hundreds of flights across the Northeast, aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo said, except this time on a nationwide scale. It may be linked to the outdated technology used by air traffic controllers.

Friday’s ground stop was different than the one after Sept. 11 because planes were not being told to land immediately, and pilots likely were able to communicate with ground controllers at airports, Arroyo said.

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AP writer Mead Gruver contributed to this report from Fort Collins, Colorado.

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