GoKawiilFAA lifts five-hour nationwide ground stop after telecom network failure
The FAA ended a five-hour nationwide ground stop caused by instability in the FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI), the private network linking the agency, air traffic controllers, and pilots. By the time it was lifted Friday evening, FlightAware reported over 6,300 US flights canceled and 9,500 delayed, with freight and mail flights also disrupted. Officials said the failure stemmed from software patches being applied to aging equipment during an ongoing fiber-optic modernization effort.