FAA computer failure halts U.S. flights as departing aircraft are grounded.

Listen the Article:

Wednesday, the largest aircraft fleet in the world was grounded for hours due to a cascading breakdown in a government system, which resulted in the postponement or cancellation of thousands of flights across the United States.

Initially, the White House stated that there was no indication that a hack was responsible for the disruption that disrupted the travel plans of millions of travellers. President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday morning that he has ordered an investigation by the Department of Transportation.

Regardless of the source, the outage highlighted how dependent the world’s largest economy is on air travel, as well as how dependent air traffic is on an obsolete computer system known as NOTAM, or Notice to Air Missions.

Prior to embarking on a flight, pilots are obliged to review NOTAMs, which provide a list of potential negative affects on flights, such as runway construction and the possibility of icing. The system was formerly telephone-based, with pilots dialling specific flight service stations for information; however, it has now moved online.

According to the flight tracking website FlightAware, the NOTAM system malfunctioned late Tuesday, causing more than 1,000 aircraft cancellations and 7,000 flight delays by Wednesday midday.

As backups multiply, the turmoil will likely intensify. According to aviation data company Cirium, more than 21,000 flights were scheduled to depart the United States today, the majority of which were domestic flights, and roughly 1,840 international planes were expected to arrive in the United States.

At airports in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta, 30% to 40% of flights were delayed.

In an interview with CNN, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stated, “We are going to see rippling impacts from this morning’s delays across the system throughout the day.” “We must now determine how this could have occurred in the first place. Why the typical redundancies that would prevent it from being so disruptive did not prevent it from being so destructive this time”

Longtime aviation insiders could not recall a technology-related disruption of this size. Some compared it to the nationwide lockdown of airspace following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Tim Campbell, a former senior vice president of air operations at American Airlines and current consultant in Minneapolis, stated, “Occasionally there have been small concerns here and there, but this is historically big.”

Not only the NOTAM system, but the technology of the Federal Aviation Administration has long been a source of concern, according to Campbell.

“Many of their systems are antiquated mainframes that are generally dependable but out of date,” he said.

John Cox, a retired airline pilot and aviation safety specialist, stated that the aviation industry has discussed modernising the NOTAM system for years, but he was unaware of the age of the FAA’s servers.

He was unable to determine whether a cyberattack was possible.

“I’ve been a pilot for 53 years. “I’ve never heard the system fail in such a manner,” Cox added. Thus, something odd occurred.

Tuesday around 8:28 p.m. Eastern, according to FAA warnings, the NOTAM system failed, blocking the distribution of fresh or updated notices to pilots. Overnight, the FAA utilised a telephone hotline to maintain departures, but as daytime traffic increased, it overwhelmed the telephone backup system.

The FAA ordered all departures to be halted early Wednesday morning, impacting both passenger and cargo flights.

A few medical flights were able to receive clearance, and the outage had little effect on military operations or mobility.

Flights for the Air Mobility Command of the United States military were not disrupted.

Biden stated on Wednesday morning that Buttigieg briefed him.

“I just spoke to Buttigieg. They are unaware of the cause. But I spoke with him on the phone for around 10 minutes,” Biden stated. “I instructed him to report directly to me upon discovery.

Buttigieg stated on CNN that the order to stop all outgoing flights was issued out of an abundance of caution, but that widespread disruptions to air travel in the United States are unacceptable.

“We must create a system without this type of vulnerability,” Buttigieg stated.

Wednesday, while en route from Sydney to Los Angeles on a United Airlines aircraft, Julia Macpherson learned of potential delays.

“As I was returning to Florida from Hobart, Tasmania, I received word from a buddy who was also travelling abroad that there was a power outage,” recalled Macpherson. Once she lands in Los Angeles, she must connect to her aircraft to Jacksonville, Florida in Denver.

She stated that there were no FAA-related announcements made during the flight.

Macpherson claimed she had already encountered a delay in her travels because her original flight from Melbourne to San Francisco was cancelled and she rebooked a trip from Sydney to Los Angeles.

Similar reports emerged from airports in Chicago, Washington, Atlanta, and other major U.S. cities.

European flights to the United States appeared to be unaffected. Aer Lingus and Lufthansa both stated that there was no impact on their flight schedules.

It was the latest inconvenience for U.S. tourists who had flight cancellations during the holidays due to winter storms and a technological failure at Southwest Airlines. During the summer, they saw long lineups, lost luggage, cancellations, and delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic and staffing reductions at airports and airlines in the United States and Europe.