A critical Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warning system is back online after a temporary outage that caused flight disruptions across the U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned of potential “residual delays” even as the system was restored.
The Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, which alerts pilots of hazards and abnormal conditions that could affect flight operations, experienced an outage on Saturday. The FAA worked to restore the system, and by Sunday morning, confirmed that NOTAM was “online and operational.”
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Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Duffy said the “lead system” was working and that there had been “minimal disruption” due to the outage. He acknowledged that the NOTAM system is outdated and in need of modernization, stating his intention to “expedite” fixes.
While a backup system prevented a complete shutdown of the National Airspace System, the outage still caused over 1,100 flight delays and 75 cancellations within, into, or out of the U.S. as of Sunday morning, according to FlightAware.
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The cause of the outage remains unclear. It is unknown if it was related to recent broad changes and deletions across federal websites that resulted in several pages and datasets becoming inaccessible.
This incident comes just days after a fatal midair collision between a regional jet and a Black Hawk helicopter in Washington, D.C., the deadliest U.S. air carrier crash since November 2001.
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