Passengers face a second day of disruption after FAA system outage
Thousands face a SECOND day of airport chaos as hundreds more flights are delayed and dozens are canceled in hangover from failure of ‘antiquated’ FAA system – as it’s revealed the corrupted file that caused the glitch ALSO took out the backup system
- 577 flights are delayed and 74 are canceled as of 8am on Thursday morning
- More than 11,300 flights were delayed or canceled on Wednesday
- The grounding was the result of an overnight failure of its NOTAM system
- Experts say it’s down to an antiquated computer system finally failing
- The corrupted file that caused the glitch was also found in the backup system
Thousands of passengers are facing a second day of travel headaches today thanks to the failure of an FAA computer system that led to a two-and-a-half-hour ground stop yesterday, the first since 9/11.
The NOTAM system is now fixed after FAA officials found a corrupted file in its database.
The same corrupted file was also found in its backup system, which led the FAA to enforce a ground stop on all planes across America out of an abundance of caution.
Now, flights have resumed but the hangover from the pause is clear; 577 flights have already been delayed and 74 have been canceled.
Passengers exit a bus at Terminal 2 as they wait for the resumption of flights at O’Hare International Airport after the Federal Aviation Administration
That number is expected to rise throughout the day as airlines and airport staff scramble to make up for yesterday’s lost time.
As they work to appease frustrated passengers on the ground, the FAA, Department of Transportation and specifically Secretary Pete Buttigieg are facing tough questions about how the chaos could have come about in the first place.
Experts say it’s down to an antiquated system – that was in desperate need of an overhaul – finally buckling.
According to a source cited by CNN on Thursday, the problem was first detected at 3pm on Tuesday.
FAA staff eventually identified a corrupt file in the sysyetm that caused it to fail.
They do have a backup system that was implemented – but the corrupted file was also found in that system.
In an effort to solve the issue during the quietest flying period of the day, they rebooted the system.
But it took longer to come back online than expected, which ultimately led to the ground stop, the source said.
The fact that the backup system also failed shows how outdated the DoT’s tech is.
Yesterday, Buttigieg said the incident would serve as a ‘data point’ for the next budget. But many are blaming the fiasco on him.
The grounding was the result of an overnight failure of its NOTAM system, which is used by pilots to access flight plans and communicate with air traffic control, and is used to warn other pilots of hazards along flight paths such as runway closures, equipment outages and construction, bringing flights to a temporary halt.
FAA officials said a preliminary review traced the problem to a damaged database file, but adding there was no evidence of a cyberattack and the investigation was continuing.
More than 11,300 flights were delayed or canceled on Wednesday in the first national grounding of domestic traffic in about two decades, since 9/11
The same file corrupted both the main system and its backup, said people familiar with the review, who asked not to be identified.
U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, a Democrat, said the panel would investigate. Republican Senator Ted Cruz called the failure ‘completely unacceptable.’
‘The modernization of the FAA will be expensive, and will be paid for through a combination of taxes on air travel that affect all carriers and efficiencies by larger airlines,’ brokerage Bernstein said in a note.
Arjun Garg, former FAA chief counsel and acting deputy administrator, said that it was premature to draw any conclusions about the event, but that the agency was right to ground flights if a safety system was not operational.
Garg, now a partner at law firm Hogan Lovells, said the incident was a reminder that the FAA was subject to an annual appropriation cycle, making it difficult to plan and execute major multiyear projects such as air traffic control upgrades.
‘The health of that agency and its ability to deliver on its mission really is important,’ he said in an interview. ‘It’s a high-profile matter.’
The FAA has been without a permanent administrator since March.
The Senate has not held a hearing on President Joe Biden’s pick to head the agency, Denver International Airport Chief Executive Phil Washington.
He was re-nominated last week.
What is the FAA Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system?
Wednesday saw thousands of flights across the US grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), due to a failure in the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAMs) system.
In the world of aviation, NOTAM is an unclassified notice that contains vital information for those concerned with flight operations, while not being delivered far enough in advance to be in the public realm through other means.
A NOTAM is filed with a country’s aviation authority – in the case of the US, the FAA – to alert other pilots of any hazards on their route.
The authority then distributes these notices to relevant pilots.
A NOTAM ‘states the abnormal status of a component of the National Airspace System (NAS) – not the normal status,’ the FAA website explains.
Among the hazards flagged by NOTAM include air shows, parachute jumps, rocket launches, as well as changes in operations such as runway closures or airspace restrictions caused by military exercises.
Criticism has ben leveled at NOTAMs which can go up to 200 pages for long-haul international flights.
In 2017, an Air Canada flight nearly crashed into four other airlines as it attempted to land in San Francisco.
The flight misidentified a taxiway as a runway. Information about the adjacent runway being closed was buried in the NOTAM.
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