The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday that it was halting all departing flights “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.”
The outage only caused centers to be unabke to perform their duties (tower and approach were able to continue operations), due to loss of radar and other instrumentation
SMART AI tool was rolled out to centers on the same day as the ground stop. It is not a tool used by approach or tower
The FAA did not provide any indication of the cause, which is unusual. Previous outages such as the ground stop in 2023, the FAA provided a reason within a few hours (this was the 2nd nation-wide ground stop since September 11, 2001)
As a note: I got this information from talking with my tower, so it’s 2nd hand to begin with. Minor details may be inaccurate, but I stand behind the broad facts
Facts I’m confident in are:
The outage only caused centers to be unabke to perform their duties (tower and approach were able to continue operations), due to loss of radar and other instrumentation
SMART AI tool was rolled out to centers on the same day as the ground stop. It is not a tool used by approach or tower
The FAA did not provide any indication of the cause, which is unusual. Previous outages such as the ground stop in 2023, the FAA provided a reason within a few hours (this was the 2nd nation-wide ground stop since September 11, 2001)
As a note: I got this information from talking with my tower, so it’s 2nd hand to begin with. Minor details may be inaccurate, but I stand behind the broad facts