ALEX BROWN
The Federal Aviation Administration halted every departing domestic flight in the United States on Friday, November 13, in a rare nationwide ground stop that lasted more than four hours, and the timing could hardly have been worse for Hollywood. The order landed on the eve of one of the entertainment industry’s busiest weekends, with the Academy’s Governors Awards, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, the final days of the American Film Market and two major premieres all on the calendar. The FAA lifted the stop around 5:15 p.m. PT, but airlines warn the knock-on cancellations will run into the weekend.
Why were all US flights grounded?
The FAA first said the stop was ordered “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety,” and reported frequency and radar outages between several air traffic control centers, according to MPR News. At a White House briefing after the skies reopened, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed aging equipment and overloaded routers, telling reporters, per Deadline, “It was the old hardware that went down.”
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said officials had seen no evidence of a cyberattack, while Deadline reports he declined to rule one out completely. CBS News reports Mullin also said the disruption was not connected to this week’s global Microsoft Outlook outage. No official cause beyond the telecommunications and hardware explanation has been confirmed.
How many flights were canceled?
Flightradar24 says 4,042 flights were airborne and bound for US airports when the stop began at 20:54 UTC. Aircraft already in the air were allowed to land, but Al Jazeera, citing FlightRadar24, reports more than 4,700 flights were canceled and about 10,000 delayed on Friday, and Cirium counted at least 827 diversions by early evening. By late Friday night, Flightradar24 put cancellations to and from US airports through Saturday at nearly 10,000.
Flights in Alaska and Hawaii and some international departures kept operating because they run on different systems. Delta and United said they were resuming operations Friday night, while JetBlue canceled its remaining Friday flights and expects disruption to continue Saturday.
Which Hollywood events are affected by the ground stop?
Deadline reports the Academy’s 17th Governors Awards, which honor Glenn Close, Floyd Norman and Ridley Scott and draw more than 225 invited guests, are set for this weekend at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Ovation Hollywood, surrounded by roundtables and FYC events. One agency source told Variety their department “broke out in a panic” checking whether clients could still get to Los Angeles.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony is scheduled for Saturday at the Peacock Theater, and the American Film Market wraps Sunday, with Variety reporting several AFM events were canceled as dealmakers were stuck mid-trip. Monday brings red carpets for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping in New York and Quentin Tarantino’s The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth in Los Angeles. Lionsgate told Deadline it is monitoring the situation. Deadline also understands Monday’s Critics Choice Celebration of Black Cinema and Television will go ahead as planned.
Has this happened before?
Nationwide stops are extremely rare. Deadline counts this as only the third, after the September 11, 2001 attacks and the January 11, 2023 failure of the FAA’s NOTAM system. Duffy used the briefing to press Congress for roughly $50 billion more to modernize air traffic control.
What happens next?
Duffy said it will “take us some time to get back to capacity,” per ABC, though he expects the system to be fully operational before Thanksgiving travel. Travelers should check their airline before heading to the airport, and fans should watch for schedule changes to this weekend’s red carpets. It’s also a big box office weekend, with Johnny Depp’s Ebenezer opening alongside holdovers like How to Rob a Bank, and the season’s tentpoles still ahead in our November and December release guide. The outage caps a turbulent week in tech that also saw Jensen Huang resign as Nvidia CEO.
This is a developing story.
Get the Nerdism Newsletter
Trailers, box office and gaming news in your inbox. Free, no spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Related on Nerdism
- The Biggest Movies Still Coming in 2026: Your Guide to November and December Releases
- How to Rob a Bank Reviews Are In: Nicholas Hoult Shines, But David Leitch’s Heist Movie Splits Critics
- Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO After 33 Years
Sources: Deadline (Hollywood weekend), Deadline (ground stop lifted), Variety, Flightradar24, Al Jazeera, CBS News, CNN, MPR News, ABC7