Ground stop at Washington National (DCA), Oct 22, 2026

EndedEquipment outage briefly halts departures to Washington National

Started: Thu, Oct 22, 5:47 PM EDT21:47 UTC
Ended: Thu, Oct 22, 5:55 PM EDT21:55 UTC
Duration: 8 min
Cause: equipment outage

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What happened

AI-written · may contain mistakes. Written from the advisory text and weather only.

Cause: An equipment outage led air traffic control to hold departures, even though the weather was clear at the airport.

The ground stop began at 21:47 UTC and was scheduled to run until 6:15 pm Eastern. It ended at 21:55 UTC, after 8 minutes. Departures were held from two air traffic control centers while it was in effect.

Impact by airline

No airline data was collected for this ground stop.

Airline numbers appear after the first sample, within about 20 minutes of the start.

Impact by region

Air traffic control centers whose departures to the airport were held.

Center	Status
ZDC	Held
ZID	Held

Timeline

Every change published while the ground stop was in effect, as seen each minute.

Oct 22, 5:47 PM EDT
Ground stop issued at DCA for equipment, until 6:15 pm EDT. Departures held from ZDC, ZID.
Oct 22, 5:49 PM EDT
Reason changed to equipment outage.
Oct 22, 5:55 PM EDT
Ground stop ended after 8 min.

Advisories

The air traffic control advisories issued for this ground stop, as published.

ATCSCC ADVZY 084 DCA/ZDC 10/22/2026 CDM GROUND STOP

CTL ELEMENT: DCA
ELEMENT TYPE: APT
ADL TIME: 2141Z
GROUND STOP PERIOD: 22/2111Z - 22/2215Z
DEP FACILITIES INCLUDED: (Manual) ZDC ZID
PREVIOUS TOTAL, MAXIMUM, AVERAGE DELAYS: 115 / 35 / 19
NEW TOTAL, MAXIMUM, AVERAGE DELAYS: 277 / 73 / 46
PROBABILITY OF EXTENSION: MEDIUM
IMPACTING CONDITION: EQUIPMENT / OUTAGE
COMMENTS:

Original advisory ↗

How it is measured

Status, timeline, cause and held centers: the national airspace status feed, checked every minute, and the air traffic control advisories it links to.
Delays by airline and region: departures and arrivals at DCA 30 or more minutes late, by their estimated delay against the schedule, sampled every 10 minutes while the stop is active and once more after it ends.
Totals and cancellations: arrival and departure boards for DCA, every 30 minutes while active and once more after the end. Delayed means 15 or more minutes late at DCA; cancelled is the airline's cancelled status; codeshares count once. Flights scheduled from the start until an hour after the end are counted.
Held at origin: the same arrivals boards, which carry each flight's scheduled and actual departure from its origin. A flight is held when it is still scheduled, not departed, 15 or more minutes past its scheduled departure at a sample taken during the stop. In scope: its origin is in a held center or listed facility; flights from elsewhere are late for other reasons.
Inbound in the air: the same arrivals boards. At each board taken during the stop, a flight to DCA is in the air when it has departed (en route, or with an actual departure time) and not landed, cancelled or diverted; one still shown in the air over an hour past its arrival estimate, or departed more than 18 hours earlier, is treated as stale and left out.
Diversions: an inbound flight marked diverted during the stop or the wrap-up after it (not one marked before it could have departed), or one still shown in the air 30+ minutes past its arrival estimate that ADS-B (by its ICAO call sign) then found on the ground at another airport, not its origin. The diversion airport is the airport ADS-B found it at, else the updated destination. Cancellations never count. Regional flights flown under another call sign can't be found on ADS-B, so their diversion airport may be unknown.
Aircraft on the ground and holding: ADS-B positions around DCA, every 5 minutes; the airline is read from the call sign. Holding counts airline flights only (passenger, regional and cargo), not private, military or medical flights.
Weather: METARs, SIGMETs and weather alerts.
News: headline links filtered to this airport and these days; we show titles and links only.

Data sources are listed on the credits page.