FAA paused some West Coast flights at time of North Korea missile launch

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced on Tuesday that it paused some flights out of West Coast airports on Monday around the same time that North Korea reportedly launched a ballistic missile.

“As a matter of precaution, the FAA temporarily paused departures at some airports along the West Coast on Monday evening,” the FAA said in a statement to The Hill. “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,” the agency’s statement added.

While the FAA did not mention North Korea specifically, a U.S. official told Reuters that the temporary halt in flights was the result of “initial reports of events in the Indo-Pacific region.” 

“We are aware of the ballistic missile launch and are consulting closely with our allies and partners,” the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said of the launch, noting that “this event does not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies.”

Earlier on Tuesday, the U.S. condemned North Korea’s missile launch as a violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions and a threat to the international community, according to Reuters. 

The most recent missile firing marked North Korea’s second launch in a week, after the country also fired what it claimed to be a hypersonic missile.