FAA Halts All U.S. Flights for About Four Hours, Disrupting Film Industry Events

The Federal Aviation Administration halted all flights in the United States on Friday at around 1 p.m. Pacific time. About four hours later, at around 6 p.m., it cancelled the nationwide ground stop, which holds aircraft on the ground and stops new departures. Variety reported the timeline.

The FAA said the pause was due to extraordinary circumstances and was for reasons of safety.

Markwayne Mullin said a telecommunications outage caused the flight backup. He said there was no sign of a malicious attack against the United States.

The stoppage also reached the film business. Several events tied to the American Film Market (AFM), the industry's deal-making market, were cancelled because of the flight standstill.

The Governors Awards, the Academy's honorary awards evening, takes place at the Dolby Ballroom at Ovation Hollywood. The Academy and the AFM are both part of the same busy stretch of the Hollywood calendar, and the pause showed how quickly travel disruption can ripple into the industry's schedule.

Flights were back on their normal footing once the ground stop was lifted that evening.