JUST IN: FAA Lifts Nationwide Flight Grounding Following Computer Failure

Colby HallJan 11th, 2023, 7:10 am

Angela Weiss/AFP, Getty

Air travel across the United States ground to a halt Wednesday morning due to an FAA alert system malfunction of Notices to Air Mission Systems.

UPDATE: Good news! FAA has announced that “normal air traffic operations are resuming”:

Update 5: 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 ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023

It was unclear if this was a nationwide grounding though reports on social media suggest hundreds of delays at airports across the country. According to flight tracking software, flights that took off before the system failure are still en route.

The airline tracking website FlightAware has updated total delays as of 9:00 AM:

Total delays today: 10,541
Total delays within, into, or out of the United States today: 4,013
Total cancellations today: 2,052
Total cancellations within, into, or out of the United States today: 719

Why is this happening? According to Reuters reporting :

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) system that alerts pilots and other flight personnel about hazards or any changes to airport facility services and relevant procedures was not processing updated information, the civil aviation regulator’s website showed on Wednesday. In an advisory, the FAA said its NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system had “failed”. There was no immediate estimate for when it would be back, the website showed, though NOTAMs issued before the outage were still viewable.

The Air Traffic Control System Command Center released the following bulletin at 4:18 AM EST:

THE UNITED STATES NOTAM SYSTEM FAILED AT 2028Z. SINCE THEN NO NEW NOTAMS OR AMENDMENTS HAVE BEEN PROCESSED. TECHNICIANS ARE CURRENTLY WORKING TO RESTORE THE SYSTEM AND THERE IS NO ESTIMATE FOR RESTORATION OF SERVICE AT THIS TIME. THERE IS CURRENTLY A HOTLINE IN EFFECT WHICH HAS NAIMES/FAA FACILITIES/STAKEHOLDERS IN ATTENDANCE. THIS HOTLINE INFORMATION IS CONTAINED WITHIN ADVZY 004. THIS ADVZY WILL BE UPDATED AS NECESSARY.

The FAA suffered bad publicity when Southwest Airlines effectively collapsed its service due to an internal software failure, which became a hot political issue for the Biden Administration, particularly Sec of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who responded to this via Twitter:

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

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted that President Joe Biden has been briefed on the situation and, as of now, there is no evidence of a cyberattack:

The President has been briefed by the Secretary of Transportation this morning on the FAA system outage. There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes. The FAA will provide regular updates.

— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) January 11, 2023

This is a developing story and will be updated accordingly.

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Colby Hall - Founding Editor

Colby Hall is the Founding Editor of Mediaite.com. He is also a Peabody Award-winning television producer of non-fiction narrative programming as well as a terrific dancer and preparer of grilled meats.