The Federal Aviation Administration has suspended takeoff clearances for aircraft at every airport in the United States, effectively freezing all domestic flight departures until further notice. The agency cited reasons of safety and “extraordinary circumstances” for the order, which applies to all destinations and air traffic centers across the National Airspace System.
The stop follows widespread technical outages affecting radio frequencies used for communications between pilots and air traffic controllers. While departing traffic is held, flights already in the air are permitted to land, and inbound international arrivals are being managed on a case-by-case basis. Though some reports indicated the grounding would last until 2200 UTC, the FAA’s official guidance remains that traffic should stay stopped until further notice.
