A major computer glitch in the US aviation regulator — FAA’s — system, grounded a majority of the flights across the United States for hours. The issue, though now resolved, resulted in thousands of delayed flights, along with several hundred being cancelled.
The White House has now been briefed about the tech glitch in the FAA’s NOTAM computer system, which grounded multiple flights across the country and briefly brought nearly all air traffic to a halt. The NOTAM keeps pilots and other flight personnel informed of the status of airports across the country, offering information on runway closures, potential hazards, and others. And with the system out of commission, aircrafts taking flight were simply inviting danger.
“Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted. We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem,” the FAA wrote in a thread. As per FlightAware, more than 5,400 flights across the United States had been delayed, while 900 others were canceled. This makes up a chunk of the 21,464 flights that were scheduled to depart across the US on Wednesday.
According to aviation expert Parvez Damania, the situation was “shocking and unheard-of.”
And unsurprisingly, Twitter was full of posts where users shared their grievances and woes at their flights being affected.
Gotta love when you book a 6 am flight trying to avoid travel delays, but due to a nationwide FAA system issue the flight is delayed anyway. Going to be a long day :)
— Adele Burk (@BurkAdele) January 11, 2023
In case you missed it, FAA informed at 7:19 AM ET that it had “ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures” until 9 AM ET to give it time to “validate the integrity of flight and safety information.”
At 4:59 PM IST, the agency informed in a tweet that it was working to restore its Notice to Air Missions System. “We are performing final validation checks and reloading the system now. Operations across the National Airspace System are affected,” the tweet read, adding that the FAA would provide frequent updates as it made progress.
In a later update half an hour later, the agency informed that some functions were beginning to come back online, but the operations at the National Airspace Systems “remain limited.” 20 minutes later, it revealed that it had ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9 AM ET in order to allow the FAA to validate the integrity of flight and safety information.
Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Transportation, US, informed that he had been in touch with the FAA regarding the outage, and the agency was working to resolve this issue swiftly and safely so that air traffic can resume normal operations.
I have been in touch with FAA this morning about an outage affecting a key system for providing safety information to pilots. FAA is working to resolve this issue swiftly and safely so that air traffic can resume normal operations, and will continue to provide updates.
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) January 11, 2023
In a thread, the FAA further informed that flights that were currently in the sky were free to land, before adding that departures at the Newark Liberty International Airport and the Atlanta Airport were resuming due to air traffic congestion in those areas. The FAA expected departures to resume at other airports at 9 AM ET.
In a final tweet at 7:20 PM IST, the agency informed that normal air traffic operations were “resuming gradually” across the US and that it was looking into the cause of the initial glitch. No evidence of foul play or a cyberattack has been found at this point, although the Department of Transportation has been directed by the President to launch a probe into the cause.
