The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has experienced a major disruption. According to the FAA’s website, the system that provides pilots and ground staff with information about disruptions in the flight process has failed. Flights across the United States were affected Wednesday morning after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported a computer failure.
Shortly thereafter, the FAA announced that no domestic flights would be departing nationwide until 3:00 p.m. German time in order to restore the accuracy of flight and safety information. The FAA thus confirmed rumors previously circulating on the internet that there could be a nationwide ground stop (interruption of all flight activities). How the failure could have happened is still unclear. “There is currently no indication of a cyberattack, but the President has directed the Department of Transportation to conduct a full investigation into the case,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre wrote on Twitter.
According to the flightaware.com website, more than 1,100 flights within, to or from the USA were delayed in the morning (local time), and around 90 were canceled. United Airlines announced that it has temporarily suspended all domestic flights, CNN reports. On Wednesday afternoon German time, several aircraft could still be seen in the airspace in the flight tracking service “Flightradar24”:
It wasn’t immediately clear if the system outage was a factor in the delays.
“The FAA is working to restore the Notice to Air Missions System. We are currently conducting final validation checks and reloading the system. Operations across the national airspace system are affected. We will update you regularly on progress,” the agency wrote on Twitter .
A short time later, the FAA said: “While some functions are gradually being brought back into service, the operation of the national airspace system remains restricted.”
The US Federal Aviation Administration’s system, called the NOTAM system, was not processing updated information, Reuters reports. A NOTAM is a notice containing information important to personnel involved in flight operations.
The failure can lead to far-reaching impairments, writes the AP news agency. All aircraft must be routed through the system, including commercial and military flights.
Note: This article has been updated.
