FAA Computer Glitch Grounds Flights Across The US

According to news reports, a significant problem with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system has stopped flights all over the US. The FAA posted an advisory notice early Wednesday morning saying that the US NOTAM (Notice to Air Mission) system has “failed” and that engineers are working on getting it back online.

At 7:19 AM ET, the agency said it had “ordered airlines to stop all domestic departures” until 9 AM ET so it could “validate the integrity of flight and safety information.” At least one airline, United, sent a notice before the latest FAA order saying that all of its flights were canceled. After that, the FAA’s grounding was extended until 9:30 AM ET.

FAA Computer Glitch Grounds Flights Across The US
FAA Computer Glitch Grounds Flights Across The US

“The FAA is working to restore its Notice to Air Missions System,” the FAA said in an earlier statement. “We are performing final validation checks and repopulating the system now. Operations across the National Airspace System are affected.” It added that it will provide “frequent updates” as work progresses.

Reuters says that NOTAM is a critical system that lets pilots and other flight workers know how airports across the country are doing. It can tell you about closed runways, bird hazards, and other problems.

FlightAware says that more than 1,000 US flights have been delayed, and more than 100 have been canceled.

Sure enough, there are tweets about flights being late because of the outage.

DJ Patel, who used to be the US Chief Data Scientist, tweeted at 4 AM ET that he was “stranded” because the internet was down everywhere. Another person tweeted from the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, France, that they were told there were no flights to the US right now.

Stay tuned to our website NogMagazine.com for more updates.