The FAA ordered all airports nationwide to ground departing flights Thursday after posting ground stops at Chicago O'Hare International Airport and Midway International Airport over an equipment outage. The move widened a problem first flagged in Chicago into a shutdown that reached the national system.
The stoppage means all departing flights are grounded until further notice, while inbound flights are being handled case by case. That is the part travelers will feel first: a local equipment problem turned into a nationwide pause, with the FAA citing extraordinary circumstances and safety as the reason.
The airport-specific ground stops were posted to the FAA's National Airspace System Status website, and the Air Traffic Control System Command Center noted comms issues in its alert. Those details matter because they are the only explanation the FAA gave for the disruption, even as the order quickly moved far beyond Chicago.
That is where the story turns. The FAA framed the nationwide ground stop as a safety measure, but no further details were immediately available about what actually failed, how it spread or why the system response had to extend to every airport. The equipment outage is the only named trigger, and the gap between that limited explanation and a nationwide halt is now the central unanswered point.
CBS News Chicago updated the report at 3:33 PM CST on November 13, 2026, and said it had reached out to the Chicago Department of Aviation and both airports for more information. For now, the FAA has given travelers the clearest answer possible and the most frustrating one: departures are stopped, arrivals are case by case, and the agency has not said how long the ground stop will last.
