ATCSCC Advisory
ATCSCC 111 DCC 11/13/2026 NATIONAL GROUND STOP
EVENT TIME: 13/2053 - 14/0400
DUE TO EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES AND FOR REASONS OF SAFETY.
ATTENTION ALL AIRCRAFT OPERATORS, BY ORDER OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION
COMMAND CENTER ALL AIRPORTS ARE GROUND STOPPED. ALL DEPARTING
TRAFFIC SHOULD REMAIN GROUND STOPPED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. INBOUND
INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS WILL BE MANAGED ON A CASE BY CASE BASIS.
Same here, I get it only on some refreshes, otherwise it shows "no advisories". I hope that's not the main path these things are disseminated normally.
I wonder if this will close the Starship launch window starting at 5:45pm EST. The FAA issued the commercial launch license earlier today. That launch is under a separate set of "commercial space rules", but presumably they need to coordinate with air traffic control.
I'm wondering if this is another case of delayed Y2K, where the system suddenly thinks the century part is 19 instead of 20 for a two digit year of 26.
There isn't really one. This is a system that's supposed to have it's own built in redundancy and must not go down.
Flight Service uses a different set of radios and can relay messages to ATC, but they've been slowly dismantled over the last two decades and wouldn't have the capacity to step in for an outage (nor should they be expected to - that's not their purpose).
Some aircraft have CPDLC for text-based communication, but it's asynchronous and you can't use that as a replacement for voice communication in the terminal environment. Also, many aircraft aren't equipped to receive it.
Pilots are trained on lost comms procedures, so if you're in the air and the radio fails they'd fall back to those regulations. Basically all the aircraft would fly their last assigned clearance, and attempt to deconflict manually with other aircraft over air-to-air radio (similar to flying into an untowered airport).
> Transport Secretary Sean Duffy says the FAA "issued a nationwide ground stop for all US airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.
>The FAA has issued a nationwide departure ground stop “due to several impacts to ATC Frequencies and/or Radar capabilities,” the Air Current reported, referring to air traffic control systems. The FAA command center said it does not have further information on the “timing or cause of this outage,” the publication said.
ATCSCC Advisory
ATCSCC 111 DCC 11/13/2026 NATIONAL GROUND STOP
MESSAGE:
EVENT TIME: 13/2053 - 14/0400
DUE TO EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES AND FOR REASONS OF SAFETY.
ATTENTION ALL AIRCRAFT OPERATORS, BY ORDER OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION
COMMAND CENTER ALL AIRPORTS ARE GROUND STOPPED. ALL DEPARTING
TRAFFIC SHOULD REMAIN GROUND STOPPED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. INBOUND
INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS WILL BE MANAGED ON A CASE BY CASE BASIS.
EFFECTIVE TIME: 132054 - 140430
SIGNATURE: 26/11/13 20:54
It's due to a "rolling frequency outage", per one report:
"Journalist Anna Giaritelli cited a FAA release which cited “rolling frequency outage” as the cause of the ground stop. A frequency outage occurs when the radio communication infrastructure that enables pilots to communicate with Air Traffic Control (ATC) controllers fails to function properly. However, a country-wide failure, at such a large scale, is unprecedented."
If true and this ends up lasting an hour or more, that's going to be undeniably, objectively hilarious. At least they used to keep the planes running on time!
And that is how feelings turn into rumors, which turn into "facts", through a game of telephone in which each next person wants a pat on the back for having their finger on the pulse, for wishing to be perceived as a thought leader.
And then "journalists" "feel" like they have to report on things because as long as they say they're reporting that "someone else had a feeling" they're not technically wrong, and they have bosses breathing down their necks to make the business work, to grow their monetizable audience.
And then no one knows what's true anymore, because we chose to be entertained instead of choosing to be informed.
Anyone have a screen shot? I just see "NO Advisory"
edit: https://www.fly.faa.gov/ois/oisedit/adv_oisedit_dis?number=1...
From Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/s/HUT3wjABQ6
For anyone who doesn’t want to click through, there are problems with “frequencies”. Something must be jamming up the airways… but nationwide??
It disappeared briefly, but is back now.
Same here, I get it only on some refreshes, otherwise it shows "no advisories". I hope that's not the main path these things are disseminated normally.
I wonder if this will close the Starship launch window starting at 5:45pm EST. The FAA issued the commercial launch license earlier today. That launch is under a separate set of "commercial space rules", but presumably they need to coordinate with air traffic control.
Gotta say man, I don't think that's gonna be a top priority for most people
otoh, the reason they normally need to communicate with atc is that there normally are planes
> DUE TO EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES AND FOR REASONS OF SAFETY
I'm sure there is a reason for it but can they not be a little bit more specific?
It seems the ATC radio system went down across the country
Radio is not a nationwide _system_ that can go down. ATC just uses basic AM radio for radio comms.
Sure, but these are no longer connected to the controller's microphone via a long cord anymore.
Yesterday I was flying out of lovefield in Dallas and the radios went down. We were stuck for about 10min only thankfully.
Radar multiplexer pipeline is likely down.
https://www.sunhillo.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/SUN3125-... (page 3, bottom graphic)
I'm wondering if this is another case of delayed Y2K, where the system suddenly thinks the century part is 19 instead of 20 for a two digit year of 26.
Am I missing something notable about today's date?
Friday the 13th
ATC radio is unencrypted analog for safety and communicability reasons, this shouldn't matter.
Based on what? Just wild speculation or something you've actually seen about the systems involved?
Does ATC run on Microsoft 365?
This might be a serious question but it is also the funniest thing I've read all week. Thank you.
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50388001
From what I know of the ATC system it's closer to IBM System 360 then to Microsoft 365
Maybe every 24 hours a new login password is emailed around the country for good security.
LOL..
What backup systems exist for air-to-ground communication? Something satellite based?
There isn't really one. This is a system that's supposed to have it's own built in redundancy and must not go down.
Flight Service uses a different set of radios and can relay messages to ATC, but they've been slowly dismantled over the last two decades and wouldn't have the capacity to step in for an outage (nor should they be expected to - that's not their purpose).
Some aircraft have CPDLC for text-based communication, but it's asynchronous and you can't use that as a replacement for voice communication in the terminal environment. Also, many aircraft aren't equipped to receive it.
Pilots are trained on lost comms procedures, so if you're in the air and the radio fails they'd fall back to those regulations. Basically all the aircraft would fly their last assigned clearance, and attempt to deconflict manually with other aircraft over air-to-air radio (similar to flying into an untowered airport).
There is CPDLC or "datacom" that can be done via satellite, but I think most planes that have it, use it via ground-based radio.
On a plane about to take off and obviously we didn’t. The captain is very confused and says he doesn’t know what this means.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c6z9dwn12037t
> Transport Secretary Sean Duffy says the FAA "issued a nationwide ground stop for all US airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers.
Are you in the air now? Looks like it might be over but unclear really
No we were about to push off at DET when the grounding came in.
apparently FAA is not providing pilots with any more info
https://www.weather.gov/afc/radaroutage
They say "national outage," but if I go to the site for my area, my local weather radar seems to be working.
So strange
Oh cool, I’m on a plane rn about an hour from my destination.
From the Financial Times:
> Los Angeles Airport and Las Vegas’s Harry Reid International were among those that were closed, according to a list on the regulator’s website.
> The outages at O’Hare and Midway were listed as “due to equipment outage”.
https://www.ft.com/content/c9b119ff-d1da-46a7-b2b3-4ad0544ff...
Likely Atc system outage, saw this at Chicago
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/ground-stop-chicago-oha...
Maybe I’m misremembering but hasn’t this only happened like, twice in recent memory? 9/11, and for like two hours two or three years ago
Is this still real? It says NO Advisory now :\
Is it because it's friday the 13th?
>The FAA has issued a nationwide departure ground stop “due to several impacts to ATC Frequencies and/or Radar capabilities,” the Air Current reported, referring to air traffic control systems. The FAA command center said it does not have further information on the “timing or cause of this outage,” the publication said.
(from Bloomberg)
Do we know if this is something related to a ransomware attack of some sort or a cyber attack?
Working link: https://www.fly.faa.gov/ois/oisedit/adv_oisedit_dis?number=1...
effective 2:54PM - 10:30PM central time
This is it, massive cyberattack on the USA.
It's due to a "rolling frequency outage", per one report:
"Journalist Anna Giaritelli cited a FAA release which cited “rolling frequency outage” as the cause of the ground stop. A frequency outage occurs when the radio communication infrastructure that enables pilots to communicate with Air Traffic Control (ATC) controllers fails to function properly. However, a country-wide failure, at such a large scale, is unprecedented."
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/faa-issues...
which links to: https://x.com/Anna_Giaritelli/status/2121344915091206311
which has a photo of an FAA document
I'm sure this isn't related https://gizmodo.com/the-faa-is-rolling-out-its-ai-air-traffi...
That is an extremely bad idea.
This actually makes sense. I can't believe people actually think outlook being down would take down all departures across the US
holy fuck that website is shit
You are right, it isn't. Good for you.
If true and this ends up lasting an hour or more, that's going to be undeniably, objectively hilarious. At least they used to keep the planes running on time!
waiting for the OpenAi post saying Astra 6.5 tried to book a flight
If true they would raise another 100B
Make it a trilly and it's a deal.
Did an agent escape containment and start using the atc radio channel for swarm comms to collaborate on creating the most realistic catgirl feet?
why are the flight paths in the shape of a pelican riding a bicycle?
Guessing this means Claude doesn’t do COBOL very well.
Get comes the manufacturered AI cyber attack on critical infra to hammer the point that government needs complete control over AI.
Can't help but suspect that "AI" is to blame and the response is to sort of ban open source AI, or owning too much compute!
New AI software update deployed using AI?
Wild to see this on adsb.lol, nothing taking off, just some big landing queues
people are reporting it's still going on....
You can see it live, check the plane tracker at flightaware or adsb.lol
Related:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50489678
I do not believe in coincidences. First Microsoft, then anthropic, now ATC radio. Something big is going on.
Both feel like extraordinary disruptions that are indistinguishable from cyberattacks from the user perspective.
The world is complex and mostly duck taped together so I wouldn't get too concerned just yet.
Hanlon's razor
No longer exists? Temporary glitch? (Edit: OP url was wrong https://www.fly.faa.gov/ois/oisedit/adv_oisedit_dis?number=1...)
its front page news everywhere right now. something definitely happened
Maybe related to this? https://gizmodo.com/the-faa-is-rolling-out-its-ai-air-traffi...
This is hugely speculative but it's beginning to feel like the Jensen scandal sparked a cyber war.
And that is how feelings turn into rumors, which turn into "facts", through a game of telephone in which each next person wants a pat on the back for having their finger on the pulse, for wishing to be perceived as a thought leader.
And then "journalists" "feel" like they have to report on things because as long as they say they're reporting that "someone else had a feeling" they're not technically wrong, and they have bosses breathing down their necks to make the business work, to grow their monetizable audience.
And then no one knows what's true anymore, because we chose to be entertained instead of choosing to be informed.
Jensen scandal is the new Harambe incident
Mr. President, there's been a second timeline-split.
Where were you when it happened
Jensen and Harambe in the same sentence, not on my bingo card
Yeah, there were definitely zero cyber incidents before this week in 2026 that I can think of. /s