FAA lifts grounding order on flights after computer outage
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said a corrupted database file was the reason behind the nationwide grounding of nearly 10,000 flights for the first time in two decades.
Preliminary findings traced the cause to a “damaged database file”, ruling out earlier speculation of a cyberattack. The same file reportedly corrupted both the main system and its backup.
An engineer “replaced one file with another” without realising the mistake, a senior official briefed on the internal review told ABC News.
“It was an honest mistake that cost the country millions.”
A key system used to notify pilots and ground staff of hazards and alerts suffered a “major failure” on Tuesday night. The fault lay with the NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system, which keeps pilots and other airport staff updated about aviation hazards and airport facilities.
The FAA was able to lift the ground stop at around 9am on the East Coast, but the damage had been done to schedules for the day.
Most airlines are waiving fees for passengers to rebook travel.
Canada suffers same mysterious air system outage as US
Canada’s air traffic system suffered a similar outage to the one that occurred in the US for a brief period on Wednesday.
US air travel was badly disrupted by the failure of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Notice to Air Missions system (NOTAM) overnight on Tuesday, forcing a full ground stop of domestic aviation on Wednesday morning.
Nav Canada, the Canadian national air navigation service provider, released a statement just after 12.30pm as US airlines struggled to resume normal service.
Oliver O’Connell12 January 2023 07:30
White House says ‘no evidence of a cyber attack’ in FAA outage
The White House said there is “no evidence of a cyber attack at this point” after a computer outage led the Federal Aviation Administration to halt aviation takeoffs across the US earlier in the day.
“The president has directed the Department of Transportation to conduct a full investigation into the causes and provide regular updates. Again, this is incredibly important to top priority the safety of Americans who are flying. We want to make sure that they’re safe,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.