The United States on Friday lifted an hours-long ground stop at the nation's airports, allowing flights to resume after a nationwide halt. Officials were quick to rule out the most alarming explanations, stating that the disruption was not caused by a cyberattack or by a sweeping Microsoft outage.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that US airspace was now "opened up" and blamed "old hardware" for the travel chaos that the stop produced. The Federal Aviation Administration's National Ground Stop was lifted at 0119Z, marking the end of the restriction on flights across the country.S1S2