US Homeland Security chief says no indication planes grounded by threat

Markwayne Mullin says a telecommunications outage triggered the nationwide ground stop, though authorities have not ruled out a cyberattack.

WASHINGTON: US Homeland Security chief Markwayne Mullin on Friday said there was no indication the country was under threat after a ground stop was issued at airports nationwide.

But Mullin told reporters at the White House after meeting President Donald Trump that authorities were still investigating — and did not rule out a possible cyberattack.

“There was no indication, as of yet, that this was a nefarious attack against us, it’s just a telecommunication outage, as of right now,” Mullin said.