US: Microsoft outage not linked to flight groundings

Washington (ANTARA) – US authorities do not link the Microsoft service disruption to the problem that led to flights being grounded at American airports, US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said on Saturday.

“I see no reason at all to connect the two. They were separate issues,” Mullin told reporters.

Microsoft services suffered a major outage on Thursday. Users reported problems accessing Outlook, Copilot, Teams and other Microsoft 365 services.

On Friday (13 November), the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced a nationwide halt to aircraft departures at airports across the country on emergency and safety grounds, while incoming international flights would be handled on a case-by-case basis.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy later said the FAA had imposed the nationwide departure ban because of a communications problem affecting all regional air traffic control centres.