'First thing I thought was doomsday': Panic and confusion at US airports as FAA ground stop leaves thousands stranded

Detailed summary

In a rare move, the FAA ordered all departing flights to be grounded after a communications failure, triggering panic at airports. | World News

The United States on Friday briefly grounded all departing flights across all airports following a communications outage, triggering chaos and confusion among hundreds of thousands of passengers whose travel plans were disrupted.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy later attributed the grounding to a legacy air traffic control communications system overload. He said the system began issuing faulty data to regional air traffic control centres, prompting a nationwide “ground stop” that led to more than 14,000 cancelled and delayed flights.

While the grounding has now been cancelled, authorities said restoration of flight services would be a gradual process.

The FAA ground stop triggered panic and confusion at airports across the United States as passengers were stranded with no end to delays in sight. "I may lose my mind," said Janice Llewellyn, 61, at New York's LaGuardia airport. Llewellyn was likely to miss her daughter's wedding in Toronto because of the shutdown.

"My husband flew all the way from England to get to the wedding. Oh gosh! I wish they had another flight, I wish I could get another flight, like, now," she told news agency AFP.

Also Read | Trump says ageing aviation system likely behind FAA ground stop, not cyberattack

Several passengers said they and crew members were left completely in the dark as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) barred all departing flights, and few had any clue what was going on. Several passengers were scrambling to find alternatives, with long lines forming at rental car counters at the airport in Las Vegas.

At the airport in Las Vegas, some fliers were told their journeys were delayed due to wind. One airline staffer said the ground stop would last eight hours and another said it would be 24 hours.

"The first thing I thought of was doomsday," a female passenger told the BBC, while another person said he was "shocked" by the announcement. A third passenger linked the shutdown with the Microsoft disruptions on Friday.

Opening of the article, excerpted from Hindustan Times. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.