Due to a widespread system failure, commercial airline flights in the US were grounded on Wednesday morning. The Federal Aviation Admin. (FAA) reported a computer outage and stated it was attempting to resolve the issue.
The precise nature of the issue was not further described.
According to online flight tracker FlightAware, at roughly 6:30 Eastern time, there were approximately 760 domestic, international, and transatlantic flights that were delayed. 90 additional flights were recorded as being canceled.
The East Coast saw the majority of delays, but they were starting to move west.
International arrivals at the Miami International Airport have kept on landing, but all departures have been postponed since 6:30 a.m., according to airport spokesperson Greg Chin.
Additionally, travelers from abroad were placed in limbo while they awaited more information on the travel disruption that resulted in numerous flight cancellations and planes idling on tarmacs since clearance was first withheld for flights coming into the United States.
The Notification to Air Missions (NOTAM) system “failed” on Wednesday morning, the FAA stated in a notice posted on its website. A NOTAM is a notice that includes information that is crucial for those working in aircraft operations.
The statement read, “Technicians are trying to restore the system at this moment; there is not an estimated time for restoration of service.”
The Austin-Bergstrom International Airport acknowledged the ground pauses in a tweet, stating that “an FAA system outage is triggering them at AUS and other airports across the country.”
The FAA stated in a statement that “operations all across the National Airspace Network are disrupted. The Notice to Air Missions System is being fixed by the FAA. We are currently completing the system’s final validation tests and repopulating it,” it said.
“As we advance, We shall give periodic updates,” it said.
In the interim, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg reportedly reassured travelers that there is no need to fear because assistance is on the way and the FAA is acting “swiftly” to fix the issue.
Buttigieg tweeted, “I have spoken with FAA regarding an outage affecting a crucial system for relaying safety information to pilots.”
“The FAA will keep you updated while working to quickly and safely fix the problem so that aviation traffic may resume normal operations.”
Following the significant IT failure, the FAA has since instructed airlines to continue to halt all U.S. departures until 9am EST.
