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(UPDATE BELOW)
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported a system failure, and as a precautionary measure, they initially urged airlines to ground domestic departures. The move was made due to computer glitches, which caused widespread disruptions and delays across the United States. This led to more than 4,000 delays, with nearly 900 flights being canceled by 10 am on Wednesday, causing chaos and frustration among passengers.
The glitch forced the FAA to ground thousands of flights across the US, marking the first time since 9/11 that domestic flights have been grounded on such a large scale. This disruption was considered one of the worst airspace shutdowns since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, with aviation insiders stating that this was the worst airspace shutdown they’ve experienced in years.
Tim Campbell, a former senior vice president of air operations at American Airlines, described the situation to the Associated Press as “significant historically” he said, “Periodically, there have been local issues here or there, but this is pretty significant historically.” Similarly, Michael McCormick, a former FAA official, called it “unheard of” and said, “This is unheard of, and then the action that the FAA had to take in grounding all the flights makes it even more significant,” in a statement to the Washington Post.
The FAA slowly began restoring normal air traffic operations, but it took longer than expected, leaving many passengers stranded and experiencing hour-long delays. The disruption comes weeks after holiday travelers were stranded when Southwest Airlines halted hundreds of flights nationwide. Flight Aware states that the computer glitch caused more than 5,000 delays within, into, or out of the US early Wednesday. More than 21,000 flights were expected to take off in the US on Wednesday, according to data from the aviation company Cirium.
President Joe Biden has ordered an investigation into the FAA system outage that grounded flights across the United States on Wednesday morning. The cause of the outage is currently unknown. President Biden stated that he had spoken to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and they should better understand what caused the failure in a couple of hours. He said they would respond at that time, and when asked if a cyberattack caused the outage, he said, “We don’t know.” The FAA had ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9 am. ET to validate the integrity of flight and safety information. Passengers were advised to check with their airlines for updates.
UPDATE:
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted its nationwide halt of departing planes on Wednesday morning after a technology outage caused widespread delays and disrupted thousands of flights. However, airlines warned that the issue would continue to affect travel throughout the day. The FAA had initially ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9 am. ET while they worked to restore the Notice to Air Missions System, which is responsible for sending messages to all pilots, such as information about closed runways, hazards, and other information. The FAA assured that all flights in the air at the time were safe to land.
Later in the day, Canada’s air navigation agency reported a brief outage with their similar notification system. No flights were delayed due to that disruption, and the system was fully restored by 2:15 pm ET.
RELATED:
Earlier this month, an air traffic control issue causing flight delays in Florida’s airspace was resolved, per FAA. The FAA stated that the slowdown was due to an air traffic computer issue. The delay impacted all carriers in and out of the area due to a problem at the MIA ATC control center (Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center). No further explanation was provided.
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