Two days after the Federal Aviation Administration issued a highly peculiar ground-stop order to aircraft operating across the western United States a

Incoming North Korean Missile Warning Prompted FAA's Mysterious Air Traffic Halt

submited by
Style Pass
2022-01-13 04:30:02

Two days after the Federal Aviation Administration issued a highly peculiar ground-stop order to aircraft operating across the western United States and Hawaii, and after the release of a remarkably murky official statement from the agency, we were no closer to understanding exactly what prompted the order than we were initially. While U.S. Strategic Command would not comment on the incident and NORAD denied it had any hand in it, information that has come to the attention of The War Zone from sources with knowledge of the events clearly paints a different picture—one that points directly to the North Korean hypersonic weapon test that occurred at nearly the exact same time as the culprit.

While it has been up for debate if the ground stop order was some sort of blatant mistake, hack, or misunderstanding on the FAA's part unrelated to the North Korean test of a hypersonic maneuvering reentry vehicle (MaRV) that occurred just before 2:30 PM PST on January 10th, 2022, that doesn't seem to be the case. We have heard multiple pilot reports and radio communications that mention a national security issue being the impetus for the ground stop, which included some airplanes in the air being told to land immediately. The FAA's official statement, which was released 20 hours after the order was issued and quickly rescinded, didn't help quench curiosity surrounding it, stating ambiguously: 

As a matter of precaution, the FAA temporarily paused departures at some airports along the West Coast on Monday night. Full operations resumed in less than 15 minutes. The FAA regularly takes precautionary measures. We are reviewing the process around this ground stop as we do after all such events.

Leave a Comment