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The FAA issued a nationwide ground stop at 3:44PM ET on Friday, November 13, 2026, halting takeoffs across the US for more than four hours before lifting it at 8:15PM ET. An FAA spokesperson told TechCrunch the stop followed communication issues affecting multiple Air Route Traffic Control Centers. Ars Technica reported it was the third nationwide ground stop ever, and that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blamed obsolete equipment for the outage. Separately, Ars Technica reported the FAA is expanding an AI tool that advises on air traffic congestion across all US airspace, which airlines praised but which the controllers' union was not involved in developing.