When was the final time the U.S. had a nationwide floor cease? – NBC New York

All flights throughout the USA have been grounded Friday afternoon after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mentioned there have been communications issues at regional air site visitors management facilities.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy mentioned there was a “communication concern impacting all Air Route Visitors Management Facilities,” and added that FAA technicians have been “investigating the difficulty.”

Friday’s nationwide floor cease since Jan. 2023, when a key FAA pc system malfunctioned. That malfunction triggered an air site visitors halt from 7:30 a.m. till 9 a.m.

Earlier than that, the final time a nationwide floor cease was in impact had been after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults.

These are the one different two occasions the FAA has ever issued a nationwide floor cease earlier than Friday.

The federal government has been working to overtake the outdated expertise that air site visitors controllers depend on since Congress accepted $12.5 billion for the undertaking final 12 months. Miles of outdated copper wires have been changed with fiber optic traces and outdated radio programs are regularly being changed at airports throughout the nation.

The issue appeared much like a regional air site visitors management communication outage in September that snarled tons of of flights throughout the Northeast, aviation security knowledgeable Steve Arroyo informed the Related Press — besides this time on a nationwide scale.