US ground stop: Mullin says it is a telecoms outage, not another 9/11, as FAA grounds flights

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered a nationwide ground stop, halting all departing flights and affecting about 7,000 flights. It says the move follows disruption to communication systems and radar capabilities used by air traffic controllers. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says it is affecting all air route traffic control centres. Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapalo says officials do not know what is happening and are using the term “extraordinary circumstances”. He says it is unprecedented: the last such grounding, in 2023, was caused by a notice-to-airmen system error. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says communications are overwhelmed at some levels but still working, with redundancy, and planes are still landing. He says the ground stop is out of an abundance of caution and everyone is safe. He says it is not another 9/11 but a telecommunications outage, and that no timeframe has been discussed: it will take time, not an hour. He says officials cannot rule out anything, including an AI-related error, and are looking at reports that the FAA was rolling out a new AI traffic control system. He says two US areas are unaffected. Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapalo reports from Washington, DC. Subscribe to our channel: bit.ly
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