The Latest: FAA grounds all flights nationwide due to communications problems

The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights nationwide Friday afternoon due to communications problems at regional air traffic control centers, an FAA notice said.The ground stop was being imposed “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” according to the notice.Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a communications issue was affecting the regional air traffic control centers that direct planes between airports nationwide. He said FAA technicians are investigating.This is the first nationwide ground stop since January 2023 when a key FAA computer system malfunctioned. Before that the last time had been after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication yet that “this was a nefarious attack against us. It’s just a telecommunications outage.”Here is the latest:Homeland security secretary says grounding all flights isn’t the same as Sept. 11“There is no indication — and we had no reason to bel