Due to a computer glitch this morning at the Federal Aviation Administration, all planes across the US were grounded. The Federal Aviation Administration attempted to restore its Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, which warns pilots of potential hazards along the flight route, until around 9 am Eastern Time (2 pm GMT). During that time, all outgoing aircraft were grounded.
According to flight tracking website FlightAware.com, 4,948 domestic, international, or intercontinental flights have been delayed as of 3 pm GMT. Apart from this, 868 have been cancelled. The East Coast experienced most of the delays.
“Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the US following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews,” the FAA said.
“The ground stop has been lifted. We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem.” Earlier, it stated that “operations across the National Airspace System” were impacted and that “final validation checks” were being performed as the system was reloaded.
Mark Stone, a Sky News correspondent at Virginia’s Ronald Reagan Airport. He said: “Well, an almighty mess for the aviation industry in the United States. As of this morning, we were told that the NOTAM system had failed, which is part of the air traffic control system. This is critical for flights to be able to take off safely. So as a consequence, the busiest airspace in the world, the airspace over the United States, didn’t open as it should have done this morning.”
US Department of Transportation had been instructed to investigate the causes
“Looking at the flight tracker websites, it was very clear you could see flights clustered around many cities around the United States and none of them taking off. Chaos for passengers, as you might imagine.” According to his press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, US President Joe Biden has been briefed on the disruption.
Although the president had instructed the US Department of Transportation to investigate the causes thoroughly. It claimed, there was no proof that a cyberattack was to blame for the malfunction.
Earlier, Mr Biden told reporters: “Aircraft can still land safely, not take off right now. They don’t know what the cause of it is. They expect they’ll have a good sense of what caused it in a couple of hours and will respond at that time.”
In addition, the president stated that he had spoken with Pete Buttigieg. Pete is the transportation secretary, over the phone and instructed him “to report directly to me when they find out”. Several users tweeted that the outage had left them stranded. Moreover, one traveller at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris reported that no aircraft were going to the US.
