A nationwide ground stop has been issued by the Federal Aviation Administration. As reported by NBC News, 4,042 flights inbound to U.S. destinations were airborne.
The alert was originally issued by the federal authority at 3:54pm ET. They wrote that all departing flights were to be grounded "due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety". In terms of inbound flights, they explained they would "be managed on a case by case basis."
Markwayne Mullin, the Homeland Security Secretary, kept things vague in his announcements. He did however note that there was "no indication as of yet... [that there was anything] nefarious". "We are assured that everybody is safe," he added.
He also noted that while they are "not ruling out anything at this point", they say that the cause of the flights' grounding was because of a telecommunications outage. However, the cause of the outage is what remains unknown. Here's what we know so far, from multiple sources:
Multiple agencies also said, per NBC, "they haven't seen the type of activity that would normally be associated with a cyberattack."
Air Space Intelligence, a tech startup who recently released the SMART system via the FAA for Air Traffic Control, also said that they were not involved or related to the ground stop. "The current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC," they explained in a statement.
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Flights Being Grounded Caused Chaos
The flights' grounding has caused a lot of commotion and chaos in airports nationwide as people wait for things to go back to normal.
Per the AP, one of the more unexpected consequences was the grounding of sports teams. "NBA, NHL, and college teams were left stranded as they tried to reach their destinations," they explained.
High-ranking college football teams including Utah, Texas, and Tennessee are now stranded the day before their games.
Parcel deliveries may also be impacted as cargo flights are also affected in the stop. Per a spokesperson for FedEx, "We are prepared to activate contingency plans to minimize service disruptions... [We] will resume normal flight operations as soon as the FAA permits."
