The FAA has issued a very rare nationwide ground stop order on all flights within the USA citing communication issues affecting all of the country’s air traffic control centres.

This last happened 25 years ago during the 9/11 attacks on the WTC in New York, and the Pentagon in Washington DC.

Edited 5 hours ago5 hr by toucana
Corrected header - 'issues'

55 minutes ago, toucana said:

This last happened 25 years ago during the 9/11 attacks on the WTC in New York, and the Pentagon in Washington DC.

There was one in Jan 2023 owing to a computer system malfunction that causes a notice to air missions failure

“The NOTAM system failed at 3:28 p.m. on Tuesday, according to an FAA notice. The issue resulted from a corrupted system file, according to people familiar with the matter.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/11/faa-orders-airlines-to-pause-departures-until-9-am-et-after-system-outage.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_FAA_system_outage

The NWS (National Weather Service) radar systems are down as well apparently

Times Now

NWS Radar Outage Hits US Nationwide Amid FAA Flight Groun...

This disruption coincides with a nationwide aviation shutdown initiated by the Federal Aviation Administration affecting air traffic control, US News, Times Now

The United States is facing a nationwide weather radar outage, with the National Weather Service (NWS) reporting problems with its national radar website as technicians work to investigate the disruption. The outage comes amid a separate nationwide aviation shutdown, with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounding all departing flights following a communications failure affecting air traffic control centres across the country.

Just spotted this gem. In case you ever wondered who is still using floppy disks in 2026...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c6z9dwn12037t?post=asset%3A7b871b28-adc8-4104-89db-a0471230a062#post

55 minutes ago, toucana said:

The NWS (National Weather Service) radar systems are down as well apparently

Conflicting reports. NWS says things are running

WJAR

National Weather Service pushes back on reports of nation...

NBC 10 WJAR is the news, sports and weather leader for Providence, Rhode Island and surrounding communities, including Cranston, Pawtucket, Woonsocket, Warwick, Newport, Bristol and Narragansett, Rhod

All this as Microsoft struggles to recover from its major outtage that started yesterday. Lots of sent emails that were all jammed up on the Internet highways.

(AP) A global Microsoft outage this week disrupted email and other workplace tools, plunging business chatter and everyday services into disarray worldwide and highlighting the risks of depending on one of just a few major providers of essential technology.

Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Teams and AI assistant Copilot, were interrupted. As the outage entered its second day Friday, Microsoft said it saw “encouraging recovery progress.” But the company also warned that “intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery” may persist for some users. (end clip)

No idea if this has any relation to the ground stoppage, but I'm sure people are looking into that. Probably not directly connected, as ATC centers are still linked with old school landlines, but hard not to wonder if some indirect cascades are possible.

Happy Friday the thirteenth.

(my partner had sort of a "snow day"' thanks to the email crashes)