FAA lifts ground stop on US flights after system outage as delays, cancellations grow
FAA reports nationwide system outage, impacting flights
The Federal Aviation Administration reported a nationwide outage impacting NOTAM, appearing to impact several flights across the United States, on Jan. 11, 2023.
The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday said a temporary grounding of all U.S. flight departures had been lifted, and normal air traffic operations were "resuming gradually" after a nationwide system outage.
Meanwhile, the number of domestic flight delays and cancellations continued to grow across the U.S.
"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 FAA said shortly before 9 a.m. ET. "The ground stop has been lifted."
"We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem," the agency added.
The widespread FAA outage impacted NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions), a system that sends out critical information to pilots and other flight operations personnel about potential hazards along a route. The alerts span from mundane information about construction at airports to urgent flight restrictions or broken equipment.
All aircraft are required to route through the system, including commercial and military flights.
As a result of the issue, the FAA had ordered all airlines "to pause all domestic departures until 9 a.m. Eastern Time to allow the agency to validate the integrity of flight and safety information."
About 4,948 flights within, into, and out of the U.S. were delayed as of about 9:45 a.m. ET on Wednesday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Around 853 flights were listed as canceled.
Passengers are seen in Romulus, Michigan, United States on December 29, 2022. (Photo by Adam J. Dewey/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Early Wednesday, flights for the U.S. military’s Air Mobility Command had not been impacted, said Air Force Col. Damien Pickart, a spokesman for Air Mobility Command is responsible for all the troop movement and supply flights, such as the C-17s that carry the president’s motorcade vehicles when he travels, but also all the flights that transport troops from one base to another. Air Mobility Command was working with the FAA on the issue.
While the White House initially said that there is no evidence of a cyberattack, President Joe Biden said "we don’t know" and told reporters he’s directed the Department of Transportation to investigate the cause of the disruption.
Biden addressed the FAA issue Wednesday before leaving the White House to accompany his wife to a medical procedure at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside of Washington. He said he had just been briefed by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who told him they still had not identified what went wrong.
"I just spoke to Buttigieg. They don’t know what the cause is. But I was on the phone with him about 10 minutes," Biden said. "I told him to report directly to me when they find out. Air traffic can still land safely, just not take off right now. We don’t know what the cause of it is."
Buttigieg said in a tweet that he is in touch with the FAA and monitoring the situation.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
United Airlines told FOX Television Stations that it had temporarily delayed all domestic flights and would issue an update once it learned more from the FAA. American Airlines said that it was closely monitoring the situation.
European flights into the U.S. appeared to be largely unaffected.
Irish carrier Aer Lingus said services to the U.S. continue, and Dublin Airport’s website showed that its flights to Newark, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles were running on schedule.
"Aer Lingus plan to operate all transatlantic flights as scheduled today," the carrier said in a prepared statement. "We will continue to monitor but we do not anticipate any disruption to our services arising from the technical issue in the United States."
Throughout the early morning hours, many passengers on Twitter began reporting that their flights had been grounded as officials worked to resolve the issue.
"Anyone else stranded? Our @united (pilot) says there is a nation wide outage of FAA @FAANews computer systems," one Twitter user wrote.
"@AmericanAir informed us that all flights flying to the USA are grounded until the FAA system is fixed," another questioned. "@FAANews, any updates? Currently in Paris, Thanks."
The FAA outage was just the latest headache for travelers in the U.S. who faced flight cancellations over the holidays amid winter storms and a breakdown with staffing technology at Southwest Airlines. They also ran into long lines, lost baggage, and cancellations and delays over the summer as travel demand roared back from the COVID-19 pandemic and ran into staffing cutbacks at airports and airlines in the U.S. and Europe.
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This story was reported from Cincinnati. The Associated Press contributed.