FAA system outage causes flight disruptions in the United States

(CNN) — After a widespread interruption in the US airports due to a failure in the systems, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA, for its acronym in English) reported that operations have resumed.

“Normal air traffic operations are gradually resuming in the US following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system, which provides safety information to flight crews. Air operations resume,” the agency tweeted.

Update 5: Normal air traffic operations are gradually resuming across the US following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety information 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

However, the agency did not immediately report what caused the problem.

“We are continuing to investigate the cause of the initial issue,” the tweet read.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s NOTAMS, or Notice to Air Missions, system that failed Wednesday provides pilots with information they should read before they fly.

It is not clear how many flights were affected, as some airlines were able to operate without the information from the system.

However, FlightAware, which tracks delays and cancellations, showed that there were almost more than 4,000 flight delays and almost 700 cancellations.

Earlier, the FAA had said that “some features are starting to come back online,” but added that it would take time to figure it out. An earlier notice read: “Technicians are currently working to restore the system and there is no estimate for service restoration at this time.”

“We are performing final validation checks and repopulating the system now,” an FAA statement said. “Operations throughout the National Airspace System are affected. We will provide frequent updates as we progress.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted this morning: “I have contacted the FAA this morning about an outage affecting a key system for providing safety information to pilots. The FAA is working to quickly and safely resolve this issue so air traffic can resume normal operations and will continue to provide updates.”

American Airlines said in a statement that it is “closely monitoring the situation, which affects all airlines, and working with the FAA to minimize disruption to our operations and customers.”

NOTAMS are used by commercial airline pilots to obtain real-time information on flight hazards and restrictions. The FAA stipulates that NOTAMS should not be relied on as the sole source of information, so some flights may satisfy safety requirements by using other data.