All flights across the US have been grounded due to a glitch with the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) computer system.
According to the FAA’s twitter, the problem stemmed from the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions System. The administration said: “We are performing final validation checks and reloading the system now.”
It added: “Operations across the National Airspace System are affected. We will provide frequent updates as we make progress.”
In an update, the FAA said it has ordered a pause on all domestic departures until 9am EST “to allow the agency to validate the integrity of flight and safety information”. At 8.50am EST, the FAA said normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually. It added: “The ground stop has been lifted. We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem.”
Karine Jean-Pierre, press secretary for the White House, tweeted at 7.39am EST: “The President has been briefed by the Secretary of Transportation this morning on the FAA system outage. There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT [Department of Transportation] to conduct a full investigation into the causes. The FAA will provide regular updates.”
According to Flight Aware, a total of 4,314 flights into, within and out of the US have been delayed, with 783 cancelled as of 9am EST. Flights in and out of Chicago, Atlanta, New York and Washington appear to be the most affected.
