Source: Unsplash
The Federal Aviation Authority announced a short time ago (Wed) about an unusual malfunction, which led to the shutdown of all flights in the United States – domestic and international. The circumstances of the malfunction are being investigated.
More than a thousand flights have already been delayed
According to the FAA, this is a “malfunction” in the FAA’s internal system called the Notice to Air Missions System (henceforth NOTAM) intended for crew members and in which all parties are informed about delays or changes in flights in real time, even before these are announced to the general public.
“The Federal Aviation Authority is working on getting the NOTAM system back to normal. I am performing final checks and putting the system on the air at this moment. There is an impact on the operation of all air systems (in the US). We will publish frequent updates as we move forward,” reads the FAA’s tweet on the subject from the last hour. In another tweet, the FAA announced that it is still working on getting the system back on the air, and although some of its capabilities have been restored – it is still very limited.
Update 3: The FAA is still working to fully restore the Notice to Air Missions system following an outage.⁰⁰The FAA has ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9 a.m. Eastern Time to allow the agency to validate the integrity of flight and safety information.
— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023
In the third update of the Authority, its spokespersons update that it is still working on getting the system back on the air, but they noted that they ordered all airlines to stop all domestic flights in the country at least until 4:00 PM (Israel time). According to media reports in the United States, the malfunction in the system has already led to the delays of hundreds of flights and that dozens of additional flights have already been canceled due to the lack of a quick fix to the malfunction. About 5,800 flights are made in the US every day.
The source of the cause of the malfunction has not yet been reported, whether it is a purely technical malfunction or originated from some kind of cyber attack that led to damage to the systems. In a message on behalf of the spokeswoman of the White House, Karin Jean-Pierre, the President of the United States Joe Biden was updated on the issue by Pete Buttigieg – the American Secretary of Transportation – on the issue of the malfunction. “There are no signs indicating that this is a cyber attack, but the president ordered the Ministry of Transportation to conduct a full investigation into the reasons that led to the malfunction,” reads a tweet published by Jean-Pierre.