{
  "id": 19889860,
  "title": "FAA grounds all U.S. flights days after expanding its AI air traffic system",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/14/faa-grounds-all-u-s-flights-days-after-expanding-its-ai-air-traffic",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-11-14T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Scientific American",
    "slug": "scientific-american",
    "url": "https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/faa-grounds-all-u-s-flights-days-after-expanding-its-ai-air-traffic-system/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "On November 13, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) halted all domestic and international flights across the United States due to a \"temporary telecommunications outage,\" according to a post on X. This comprehensive aviation disruption occurred just three days after the FAA expanded its Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories (SMART) system, an AI-driven air traffic management system. The system, which analyzes weather patterns, flight paths, traffic flow, and controller staffing, was deployed nationwide on November 10. Nationwide flight stoppages are rare; the previous one occurred on January 11, 2023, for 90 minutes to resolve an outage in the NOTAM system. The last large-scale grounding was following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. The FAA's FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure is managed by L3Harris, a contractor specializing in aerospace and defense.",
  "summary": "National ground stops of this kind are exceedingly rare",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}