The FAA has ordered a nationwide pause on all domestic departures until 9 a.m. Wednesday morning following a computer failure that has affected flights around the country.
“The FAA is still working to fully restore the Notice to Air Missions system following an outage,” said the FAA when announcing the temporary grounding of all planes nationwide. “The 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 affected system is responsible for sending out flight hazards and real-time restrictions to pilots known as NOTAM or Notice to Air Missions. The FAA issued an update shortly after their initial announcement saying they’re working to fix the problem.
“The FAA is working to restore its Notice to Air Missions System. We are performing final validation checks and repopulating the system now. Operations across the National Airspace System are affected. We will provide frequent updates as we make progress,” said the FAA.
Other airlines in the U.S. have issued their own statements regarding the computer failure and are asking travelers to check with their airline for the latest information on their flight status.
Following this story, The FAA tweeted at 8:50 a.m. ET: “Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted. We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem.”
