The US Federal Aviation Administration has lifted a nationwide ground stop after a major communications failure disrupted air traffic control operations across the country.
The outage forced the FAA to halt departing flights for several hours on Friday. Reuters reported that more than 4,700 flights were cancelled and around 10,000 were delayed, with disruption also affecting some flights involving Canada and Europe.
US officials said the disruption was linked to a communications failure at air traffic control centres. The Department of Homeland Security said there was no indication at the time that the incident had been caused by a cyberattack.
The incident has renewed concerns about the condition of the US air traffic control system, which has faced ageing equipment, communications problems and shortages of air traffic controllers. Aircraft already in the air were allowed to land while departing flights were temporarily grounded.
