Key facts
- The FAA ordered all planes grounded nationwide on November 13, 2026 because of communications issues.
- ASI said its SMART system was not connected to the ground stop, in an X post.
- Microsoft said it had no indication the ground stop was related to any Microsoft services.
- DHS secretary Markwayne Mullin said authorities were not ruling out any possible cause of the outage.
- More than 3,220 flights were canceled and roughly 10,200 delayed as of 6:40 p.m. ET on November 13, per FlightAware.com.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered all planes grounded nationwide on November 13, 2026 because of communications issues, delaying thousands of flights. In a press conference outside the White House that evening, Department of Homeland Security secretary Markwayne Mullin said authorities were not ruling out any possible cause of the outage.
Some online speculated the problem was related to the SMART system, a tool from Air Space Intelligence that uses AI to monitor air traffic and prevent delays. The system began rolling out to wider use in the week of the ground stop. ASI wrote in an X post that its system was not connected to the outage: "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."
Microsoft, which had a worldwide outage knock out services such as email for hours during the same week, also denied a link. "We have no indication that the FAA's nationwide ground stop is related to any Microsoft services," the company wrote on X.
As of 6:40 p.m. ET on November 13, more than 3,220 flights into, within or out of the US had been canceled and roughly 10,200 were delayed, according to FlightAware.com. The report described the ground stop as nearly unprecedented, with only one other nationwide ground stop since federal aviation officials froze US airspace during the September 11, 2001 attacks.