What to know about flights after the U.S. nationwide ground stop
The longest flight stoppage in 25 years ended around 8:15 p.m. ET Friday, allowing some domestic flights to take off from U.S. airports. Officials expected a full recovery by Sunday.
The U.S. experienced a nationwide ground stop on Friday that affected thousands of flights, causing delays and cancellations. The stoppage, described as the longest in 25 years, ended around 8:15 p.m. ET, allowing some domestic flights to resume. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin stated there was no evidence of a cyberattack, and no lives were in danger.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) assured the system was stable afterward. Out of 41,000 scheduled flights for Saturday, as many as 5,000 may be canceled, according to FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford. The FAA is investigating whether a contractor's work on replacing copper wire with fiber optic cable caused the system overload.
The incident began when a contractor was working on the replacement Friday afternoon. The ground stop was not due to a system outage or malicious foreign activity, but rather an abundance of caution, as officials could not quickly identify the cause of the overload.
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