The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday, November 13, ordered an unprecedented nationwide ground stop for all departing flights, citing extraordinary circumstances and safety concerns linked to communication disruptions.

The emergency directive, issued at 3:54 p.m., instructed airlines to suspend all departing flights until further notice. However, the FAA provided no immediate explanation for the sudden decision, leaving passengers, airlines and lawmakers seeking answers.

The disruption caused widespread chaos across the country's aviation sector, with more than 2,000 flights cancelled and over 10,000 delayed as of 6:20 p.m., according to flight-tracking platform FlightAware.

The FAA said incoming international flights would be handled on a case-by-case basis, while all departing aircraft were required to remain grounded.

The scale of the situation was particularly significant, as Flightradar24, a Swedish flight-tracking service, reported that 4,042 aircraft heading to destinations across the United States were already airborne when the ground stop was announced.

Amid growing concerns over the cause of the disruption, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin disclosed that there was no indication that the incident resulted from any deliberate or malicious activity.

He said preliminary information pointed to a telecommunications outage, although authorities were not ruling out other possibilities as investigations continued.

Mullin also confirmed that President Donald Trump had been briefed on the development, stressing that the government was working to establish the circumstances surrounding the communication failure.

Despite the uncertainty and widespread disruption, the Homeland Security Secretary assured passengers that those already airborne were safe.

“We are assured that everybody is safe,” he said.

The nationwide aviation shutdown has triggered concerns over the vulnerability of critical communication systems supporting US air traffic operations, with thousands of passengers facing travel disruptions while authorities work to establish what went wrong.