Yesterday morning, Microsoft experienced a global outage affecting 12 of its cloud services. This included Microsoft 365 services such as Teams, Outlook, Copilot, and so on.
It disrupted businesses, government agencies, airlines, hospitals, and millions of computer users worldwide. It left critical email and communications services unavailable for more than 24 hours in some locations.
Airlines, financial institutions and technology companies were also affected. OpenAI and Anthropic reported problems with integrations connecting their AI services to Microsoft’s systems.
By Friday afternoon, Microsoft reported that it had corrected the underlying technical problem and that services were recovering. However, the company acknowledged that some customers were still experiencing intermittent disruptions and delayed email deliveries.
In Britain, courts suspended proceedings, police departments temporarily lost the ability to receive some online crime reports, and hospitals and pharmacies experienced communication problems. Government agencies in Australia, Japan, Singapore and other countries reported interrupted services.
While Microsoft continued recovering its systems, another major technological disruption emerged Friday afternoon.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a nationwide ground stop at approximately 3:54 p.m. Eastern, halting departing flights across the U.S. because of communications problems involving the nation’s 22 Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC).
The flight tracking site FlightAware lists 9,086 US flights as delayed as of 5:19PM ET. Some flights were already delayed by weather and other problems. The outage could affect over 700,000 people.
When asked if the new rollout of SMART AI at the ARTCCs could be the problem with the radar/telecommunication outage. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin replied, “We’re looking at that (AI).”
REPORTER: “There are reports that the FAA was rolling out a new A.I. traffic control system today. Has there been any link between that?”
SEC. MULLIN: “We’re looking at that. That’s part of something that obviously, through CISA at DHS, we are we’re taking a look.” https://t.co/E5Cp5FrUZa
— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 13, 2026
Some early reports suggested radio-frequency or equipment problems involving air traffic control facilities. However, the FAA had not publicly confirmed a nationwide radar-system failure or identified the specific equipment responsible.
The aviation disruption comes only three days after the FAA announced that its new AI-powered air traffic management system, known as SMART, was active at all 22 Air Route Traffic Control Centers.
SMART, which stands for Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories, was introduced on September 21, 2026, with an initial deployment covering the Washington, D.C., region.
Developed by Air Space Intelligence under an FAA contract, the cloud-based platform combines approximately 200 sources of aviation data, including weather forecasts, flight routes, airport capacity, traffic patterns and controller staffing.
The system uses AI-supported analysis to recommend changes in flight schedules and routing intended to prevent congestion and reduce delays.
The FAA reported November 10 that SMART had already helped reroute 180 flights, saving an average of approximately 10 minutes and nearly 80 gallons of fuel per flight.
However, the rollout had attracted criticism before the nationwide expansion. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association disclosed in September that it had not participated in the system’s design, testing or implementation.
Lawmakers raised specific technical and procedural questions about whether the system had undergone formal safety-risk evaluations, how its AI predictions had been validated, and how it would perform during severe weather, system outages or other abnormal conditions.
Trending: WATCH: White House Officials Reveal Reason for FAA Nationwide Ground Stop
The first SMART location, the Washington area, was the beginning of an initial 90-day evaluation period. Yet the FAA announced nationwide activation on November 10, just 50 days after the September 21 launch.
The nearly simultaneous disruptions at Microsoft and the FAA highlight growing concerns about the reliability of large, interconnected technology systems.
Microsoft has identified a network-related technical fault and says the principal problem has been repaired, although full recovery is still underway.
The cause of the FAA’s nationwide communications disruption remains under investigation. Late Friday afternoon, Air Space Intelligence said the ground stop is not a result of their SMART system or any ASI product.
The current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC.
— ASI (@AirSpaceIntel) November 13, 2026
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