Flights grounded across US following major FAA system outage
Thousands of flights have been grounded across the US after the Federal Aviation Administration’s IT system suffered a “major failure”.
The NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system, which keeps pilots and other airport staff updated about aviation hazards and airport facilities, has stopped processing information as of Wednesday morning.
The FAA said there was no nationwide ground stop, but confirmed the NOTAM system was down, with engineers currently working on the issue.
“The FAA is working to restore its Notice to Air Missions System. We are performing final validation checks and repopulating the system now,” said a spokesperson for the FAA.
“Operations across the National Airspace System are affected.
“We will provide frequent updates as we make progress.”
FlightAware data shows that at least 400 flights have been delayed into, out of or across the United States as of 5.31am ET, CNBC reports.
Passengers reported sitting on the tarmac for hours, with airport schedules thrown into disarray,
“Coming up on the three hour mark of sitting on a grounded red eye flight from @flyLAXairport, with still no publicly available update from @FAANews… love it,” tweeted Taylor Brasher.
“Nationwide FAA computer outage has grounded flights this morning! Here’s hoping we get to Disney!” wrote Alexis Uremovich on Twitter.
Meanwhile, US data scientist DJ Patil tweeted: “Anyone one else stranded? Our @united says there is a nation wide outage of FAA @FAANews computer systems.”
More follows.
