FAA computer outage delays hundreds of flights in Arizona, across US
Jan 11, 2023, 5:49 AM | Updated: 7:09 am
(Facebook Photo/Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport)
(Facebook Photo/Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport)
PHOENIX- A computer outage at the Federal Aviation Administration delayed flights across the United States, including Phoenix, on Wednesday morning.
The agency grounded at least 2,500 domestic departures, flight tracking website FlightAware reported, until shortly before 7 a.m. Arizona time.
Phoenix Sky Harbor canceled 40 flights and delayed 209 before the grounding order was lifted.
The FAA said in a tweet that it was working on restoring its Notice to Air Missions System.
“We are performing final validation checks and reloading the system now,” the FAA said. “Operations across the National Airspace System are affected.”
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
Before commencing a flight, pilots are required to consult NOTAMs, or Notices to Air Missions, which list potential adverse impacts on flights, from runway construction to the potential for icing. The system used to be telephone-based, with pilots calling dedicated flight service stations for the information, but has now moved online.
According FAA advisories, the NOTAM system failed at 8:28 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, preventing new or amended notices from being distributed to pilots. The FAA resorted to a telephone hotline in an effort to keep departures flying overnight, but as daytime traffic picked up it overwhelmed the telephone backup system.
“We are monitoring the FAA situation closely,” Sky Harbor spokeswoman Tamra Ingersoll told KTAR News 92.3 FM in an email.
Attention travelers – if you are traveling today, please check your flight status with your airline. https://t.co/9JuXKUeth1
— Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (@PHXSkyHarbor) January 11, 2023
The White House said in a statement that President Joe Biden had been briefed on the outage and that “There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point.”
The president directed the Department of Transportation to conduct a full investigation into the causes, the White House said.
KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Patricia Valencia and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
