The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has halted all flights throughout the US due to a major communications issue that has grounded flyers indefinitely. The Air Traffic Control System Command Center (ATCSCC) said at 3.54pm ET that the reason for the immediate halting of US flights was: ‘Due to extraordinary circumstances for safety reasons.’
Flight tracking service FlightAware said nearly 7,000 flights were delayed or cancelled due to the nationwide ground stop.While preliminary reports suggest the outage was not caused by a cyberattack, FBI personnel across the country are monitoring the situation, a law enforcement source told CNN. One possible cause for the massive ground stop reportedly being investigated is a software update gone wrong, leading to the systems outage, according to Bloomberg.
Could be something, could be nothing at all. But in given all the rumors about the need to stock up for 2-3 days, it’s probably best not to assume the latter at this point. Especially in light of the massive Microsoft outages yesterday. Gas up the cars, lay in supplies for a long weekend, and stay close to home.
It’s a good weekend to work in the yard, play a boardgame or two, and watch college football.