FAA order grounding flights nationwide lifted; takeoffs at Melbourne Orlando Interntional, other airports, resume

J.D. Gallop, Florida Today
·2 min read

An emergency order by the FAA caused all commercial airlines to pause departures Wednesday morning while it addressed an overnight outage in an alerting system.

The order grounding flights, which left thousands of travelers on hold nationwide, was lifted by 9 a.m. and normal air traffic resumed across the country, FAA officials tweeted.

Melbourne Orlando International Airport flights left prior to the order, officials said, but the airport, the largest in Brevard, is in compliance along with other major airports in surrounding counties, including Orlando. All flights, however, were safe to land.

"Our flights had already left. We don't have any departing flights scheduled until 11:30 a.m., but we are complying with the FAA's order," said Keely Leggett, spokesperson for Melbourne Orlando International Airport, before the order grounding flights was lifted.

The notices issued to pilots and air control operators typically contain "information that is essential to personnel concerned with flight operations but that is not known far enough in advance to be publicized by other means," according to an FAA training manual.

The notices deal with hazards or issues with runways or other airport components to help pilots navigating the skies.

The FAA issued the notice about the air missions alert system malfunction about 6:30 a.m., impacting operations across the nation's airspace system which oversees thousands of commercial flights daily.

The FAA issued the notice to air missions alert about 6:30 a.m., impacting operations across the nation's airspace system which oversees thousands of commercial flights daily.
The FAA issued the notice to air missions alert about 6:30 a.m., impacting operations across the nation's airspace system which oversees thousands of commercial flights daily.

The order did not impact general aviation — private aircraft — but commercial carriers like Southwest or Delta. Military aircraft, including those at Patrick Space Force Base, were also cleared to fly, Leggett said.

Orlando International Airport was directly impacted, with the stop flight order causing nearly 52 flights to be delayed, according to the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority. The airport serves Orlando, a major world destination because of its theme parks, and handles hundreds of flights daily. The Orlando International Airport was expecting to see nearly 500 commercial airline departures on Wednesday, officials said.

J.D. Gallop is a Criminal Justice/Breaking News Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Gallop at 321-917-4641 or jgallop@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @JDGallop.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Nation's flights put on pause; Melbourne Orlando airport complying