Unprecedented System Failure Grounds All US Flights, Restoration Underway

A system failure has caused all flights in the US to be grounded. According to reports, US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that its NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system had “failed”. The agency is working to restore its systems and is sharing updates on Twitter.

A technical glitch has caused a failure in the FAA’s NOTAM system which has led to all flights in the US being grounded. The unprecedented disruption had reportedly delayed about 3,700 flights within, into, or out of the United States and an additional 100 flights were canceled. The FAA is working to bring its systems back online and has been able to restore them to a point where operations are now resuming gradually.

The FAA has been sharing updates through Twitter and in its latest post, said, “Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted.” It first alerted the public about the issue at 6:29 am stating that it was performing final validation checks and reloading the system.

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

For now, the cause of the system failure is unknown and under investigation by the agency, it added.

The FAA explained in a tweet that the NOTAM system “alerts pilots about closed runways, equipment outages, and other potential hazards along a flight route or at a location that could affect the flight.” At 8:13 am, it cleared all flights in the air at the time to land.

According to a report by The Washington Post, passengers were facing delays across the US, from Hawaii to Washington. Airports from Texas to Pennsylvania also shared that flights were disrupted across the country.

Vineet Washington