US lifts nationwide ground stop for airports hours after halting all departures

The US federal aviation regulator has lifted a nationwide ground stop for all airports. Trump administration officials blame "overloaded" and "outdated" systems for the hourslong halt to departures. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) canceled a ground stop on all national flights hours after stopping departures at US airports on Friday.

"We have old switches, old routers, we use 1980s old copper lines. We use an old system," US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said. "It was a legacy network problem." US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said there was no indication the communications breakdown resulted from a cyberattack or artificial intelligence and that the ⁠public ​was ​never ​in danger.

Over 4,500 flights were canceled Friday and about 700 for Saturday and over 10,000 flights within, into, or out of the United States were delayed, according to the FlightAware aviation tracker. With some 11,000 flights scheduled to depart from US airports after 4 p.m.