US Flights Cleared for Depature After Massive Disruption

Air traffic operations were gradually returning to normal, the Federal Aviation Administration said, after a systems failure grounded thousands of flights on Wednesday morning.


Thousands of flights were once again able to depart major US airports on Wednesday morning (local time), after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted a nationwide halt on all domestic flights following a failure of its communications system earlier in the day.

At around 9 am Eastern Time (7:30 PM IST), the FAA said that the ground stop it ordered earlier Wednesday was lifted.

The agency ordered all domestic flights to be paused in the early hours of the morning as it worked to restore a system called NOTAM, or Notice to Air Missions system, which issues safety notices to pilots.

The communications system is critical because it alerts pilots to hazards in the air or on the ground, from accumulation of snow on the runway to visibility issues to birds near the airport.

“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 wrote. “We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem,” the agency said.

The White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said there was no evidence of a cyberattack at present, but President Joe Biden “directed DOT [US Department of Transportation] to conduct a full investigation into the causes.”

Flights were gradually cleared for departure

Around 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time (1330 GMT), the FAA said it cleared flights to depart at Newark Liberty Airport, which serves the New York City area, and the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta. The agency then said it was hoping flights to resume at other airports soon too.

More than 4,000 flights had been delayed by the time, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking website. Another 640 flights had been cancelled.

A spokesperson at Germany’s Frankfurt Airport told DW that “there are not yet” any disruptions to flight operations for planes departing for the US, and that the outage has not yet impacted planned departures or arrivals. However, several flights from Spain’s Madrid international airport to the US were delayed.

Travellers updated through the hours of disruption

A little after issuing its first alert to notify users about the outage, the FAA sent out a second alert saying some “functions are beginning to come back on line.” Still, “National Airspace System operations remain limited,” it added.

The agency said in a third update that it has ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (1400 GMT) to allow it to validate the “integrity of flight and safety information.”

Lots of flights delayed

As of 6:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (1130 GMT), around 760 delays were reported, according to FlightAware website. The flight tracking website said the massive delays were across flights flying into, and travelling out of, the US. Domestic flights were affected too.

American Airlines confirmed the outage was affecting all flights, including all carriers.

“We are performing final validation checks and reloading the system now,” the FAA said. The aviation agency noted they would update people as soon as more information became available.

NOTAMs used to be available through a hotline but that was phased out with the internet. The alerts to aviation officials span from mundane information about construction at airports to urgent flight restrictions.

This article was originally published on DW.