Flights Across US Thrown Into Chaos After 1- Hour Computer Outage

NEW YORK – Wednesday, a glitch in a federal system caused thousands of flights all over the United States to be delayed or canceled. This caused the world’s largest aircraft fleet to be grounded for hours.

At first, the White House said there was no proof that a hacker was behind the outage that messed up the plans of millions of travelers. Wednesday, President Joe Biden said that he had asked the Department of Transportation to investigate what happened.

Whatever the cause, the outage demonstrated how reliant the world’s greatest economy is on air travel and how dependent air travel is on an obsolete computer system known as the NOTAM.

Flights Could Tell Something Was Wrong

Before taking off, pilots must look at NOTAMs, which tell them about things that could go wrong with a flight, like construction on the runway or icing. Before, the system was based on the phone, and pilots would call specific flight service stations to get information. Now, the system is online.

According to FlightAware’s website for tracking flights, the NOTAM system broke down late Tuesday. By 11 a.m. Wednesday, more than 1,000 flights had been canceled, and more than 6,000 had been delayed.

The commotion is predicted to worsen as backups pile up. Cerium, an aviation data company, said that more than 21,000 planes were set to take off in the United States today. Most of them were domestic flights, but about 1,840 international flights were set to come into the country.

Long-term aviation insiders could not recall a similar-sized disruption caused by a technological failure. Some compared it to the nationwide airspace lockdown following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“Periodically, there have been local concerns here and there,” said Tim Campbell, a former senior vice president of air operations at American Airlines, now a consultant in Minneapolis.

The FAA Has Been Worrying For Sometime

Campbell said that the FAA’s technology has always been a source of worry, not just the NOTAM system.

“So many of their systems are ancient mainframe systems that are typically reliable but out of date,” he explained.

Former airline pilot and aviation safety specialist John Cox said there had been talking in the aviation industry for years about trying to upgrade the NOTAM system, but he didn’t know how old the FAA’s servers are.

He couldn’t answer whether or not a cyberattack was a possibility.

“I’ve been a pilot for 53 years. “I’ve never heard the system fail like this before,” Cox added. “An extraordinary event occurred.”

According to a notice from the FAA, the NOTAM system stopped working at 8:28 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday. This meant that pilots could not get new or updated alerts. The FAA turned to a telephone hotline to keep flights flying overnight, but the telephone backup system became overwhelmed as daytime traffic increased.

Flights Halted Wednesday Morning

The FAA halted all outgoing flights early Wednesday morning, affecting passenger and cargo flights.

Some medical flights could take off, and the disruption did not affect military operations or mobility.

Flights for the United States military’s Air Mobility Command were unaffected.

Biden stated Wednesday morning that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg briefed him.

“I just talked with Buttigieg. They have no idea what is causing the problem. “But I was only on the phone with him for about 10 minutes,” Biden explained. “I instructed him to come straight to me if they found out.

On Wednesday, Julia Macpherson was on a United Airlines aircraft from Sydney to Los Angeles when she learned of anticipated delays.

“I got word from a buddy who was also traveling overseas that there was a power outage when I was up in the air,” said Macpherson, who was flying back to Florida from Hobart, Tasmania. After landing in Los Angeles, she still has a connection in Denver on her trip to Jacksonville, Florida.

She stated that there had been no announcements on the flight regarding the FAA issue.

Macpherson stated that she had previously encountered a travel delay because her original flight from Melbourne to San Francisco was canceled, and she had to rebook a trip from Sydney to Los Angeles.

Similar reports came from Chicago, Washington, Atlanta, and other major American airports.

Flights From Europe Into The United States Are Unaffected.

Aer Lingus said its services to the United States will continue, and Dublin Airport’s website showed that flights to Newark, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles were running on time.

“All transatlantic flights will run as scheduled today,” Aer Lingus said in a prepared statement. “We will continue to monitor, but we do not anticipate any service disruption due to the technical issue in the United States.”

It was the latest snarl for holiday visitors in the United States, who had to contend with flight cancellations due to winter storms and a glitch with Southwest Airlines’ staffing technology. They also saw long queues, missing baggage, cancellations, and delays this summer as travel demand rebounded from the COVID-19 outbreak and personnel cuts at airports and airlines in the United States and Europe.

SOURCE – (AP)