‘It was a madhouse.’ Delays stack up and passengers stranded at Logan Airport Friday.

Detailed summary

A nationwide air traffic control communications problem halted departures at Boston's Logan Airport Friday. Here's what travelers need to know.

Air travelers face a weekend of delays and cancellations after the Federal Aviation Commission grounded every flight in the country for more than four hours Friday due to a breakdown in its radar and communications systems.

The rare emergency action delayed thousands of flights and diverted hundreds of others, leaving stranded passengers unsure of when they might be able to travel.

The FAA said the ground stop was being imposed “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.” The agency lifted its order after about 4½ hours but cautioned air travel is not expected to get back to normal for several days.

“It might take a day or two to get back to normal, similar to a blizzard,” said Jennifer Mehigan, a spokesperson for Massport, which runs Logan Airport. Some international flights took off but most domestic flights were canceled for the night, she said.

The ground stop began around 4 p.m. It was only the second national ground stop since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In 2023, the FAA halted traffic after a communications outage.

Federal transportation officials said it was not “a complete blackout” and assured that no one was ever at risk.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters at the White House, “There was no prior indication, or indication as of yet, that this was a nefarious attack against us,” he said. “This is a telecommunications outage as of now.”

Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, called on lawmakers to provide more funding to the FAA. “It’s going to continue to fail,” Duffy said of the agency’s air traffic control systems. “How many times does this have to happen for Congress to give the money to fix it?”

At Logan, helicopters circled above as jets lined the runways and confused passengers flooded the terminals, trying to figure their way through the stand still.

Opening of the article, excerpted from The Boston Globe. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.