Hallie Jackson NOW - Nov. 13 | NBC News NOW

A nationwide FAA ground stop was ordered Friday evening after a telecommunications failure disrupted high-altitude air traffic control communications, grounding flights across all U.S. airports 0:13, though officials stressed planes already airborne are safe and can land.

Key Takeaways:
• The FAA issued the ground stop at 3:54 p.m. Eastern citing "extraordinary circumstances," with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin saying this is "not another 9/11" and appears to be a telecommunications outage rather than an attack—though nothing nefarious has been ruled out 0:46.
• Only the highest-altitude communication layer (above ~18,000-20,000 feet, the 22 air route traffic control centers) failed; pilots still have electronic text communication (ACARS) and direct radio contact with approach and tower controllers at lower altitudes, allowing planes to land safely 12:50.
• Intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA, FBI, DHS) are monitoring for cyberattack signatures and have seen no malicious activity so far, though a sophisticated "zero-day" nation-state attack can't yet be excluded 8:17.
• The bigger problem is logistics: with 3,000+ planes landing but none departing, airports like Reagan National and Chicago O'Hare are nearing capacity, and recovery could take days—akin to "a blizzard affecting the entire United States" 2:33.
• Questions are swirling about the FAA's new AI routing tool "SMART," rolled out nationwide on November 10—just days before the outage. The vendor, Airspace Intelligence, denies any role, and officials say they are "looking at that" 40:46.
• Despite the chaos, SpaceX's Starship launch from Texas proceeded as planned because its airspace was pre-cleared, and limited international/oceanic departures were allowed to ease congestion 16:32.

This is only the third nationwide ground stop in U.S. history—after 9/11 and a 2023 outage—and with thousands of cancellations, travelers face major disruptions until investigators identify the failure's root cause.

Sources:

• 0:46 FAA ground stop issued; DHS Secretary calls it a telecom outage, not 9/11
• 2:33 Logistical challenges and airport capacity concerns explained
• 8:17 Intelligence monitoring finds no sign of cyberattack; zero-day risk remains
• 12:50 Explanation of layered FAA communications and safe landing procedures
• 16:32 SpaceX Starship launch proceeds despite the ground stop
• 40:46 Coverage of the newly deployed SMART AI system and vendor denial