Paragraph 1
Thousands of
across the USA were grounded on Friday the 13th following a
communications failure in the country's air traffic control
. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a nationwide ground stop after
with radar and
equipment. More than 3,500 airplanes were in the air at the
. Thousands of flights were cancelled, leaving
stranded at airports nationwide. The problem was eventually traced to an overloaded
, possibly as a result of maintenance work to replace
-old copper wires with fibre-optic cables. The FAA lifted the ground stop almost five hours later. Operations may take days to return to
.
