The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced on Friday that flight departures have resumed across the United States after the agency lifted a nationwide ban imposed earlier in the day for safety reasons, following significant air traffic control communication issues. The FAA attributed the suspension to ‘exceptional circumstances and safety reasons,’ according to an official statement. Markwayne Mullin, the US Secretary of Homeland Security, stated during a press briefing that there was no evidence of a cyberattack linked to the nationwide suspension of flights, and that the public was not in danger as a result of the incident. Mullin said, “There is no indication, so far, that this is a malicious attack against us; it is merely a communication outage,” adding that officials “are not ruling out any possibility at this stage.” He emphasized that there were no indications of a threat to the United States behind the decision. Mullin also ruled out any connection to the Microsoft outage that impacted email systems worldwide. Flights in the United States were resuming on Saturday after being grounded for several hours due to a major communications outage. The nationwide stop on Friday sparked widespread chaos and left hundreds of thousands of passengers in limbo, with nearly 6,000 flights canceled, according to FlightAware. Shortly before the FAA’s announcement, air traffic in Chicago was halted due to air traffic control communication issues, according to a report by Reuters. The FAA stated, “All departing flights must remain grounded until further notice,” and clarified that international flights would be handled on a case-by-case basis. Shawn Duffy, the US Transport Secretary, stated that US airspace had been reopened for navigation, attributing the disruptions that caused widespread travel delays to outdated equipment. “This is a legacy system problem,” Duffy said. “We have old, old switches, old routers. We use 1980s copper lines. It’s an old system that went down, and went down everywhere,” Duffy explained. He confirmed that the FAA’s decision was due to a communication problem affecting all air traffic control centers, and added that agency technicians are examining the issue. Duffy had formally asked Congress on Thursday for $30.1 billion in funds to modernize the air traffic control system, repeating his plea as the ground stop was lifted. This incident marks only the second time since the September 11, 2001 attacks that all departing flights nationwide have been halted. The previous occurrence was in January 2023, when the FAA suspended all domestic departing flights for less than two hours. The ground stop this time lasted around four hours and was lifted at 8:15 pm Eastern Time (0115 GMT Saturday). Congress approved $12.5 billion in funding last year to update the FAA’s aging communication system. On Friday, the FAA and the White House requested that Congress allocate an additional $30.1 billion to address other infrastructure problems. Footage from airports showed flights being delayed with passengers left scrambling for alternative plans. Methodology note: All figures and statements in this article are attributed to official US government sources, including the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Transport, as well as reporting by Reuters and AFP. The timeline and funding details are based on official Congressional records and agency press releases.