New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….
Original story (published on January 11, 2023) follows:
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the government agency in charge of regulating all aspects and protocols related to aviation for all flights entering and leaving the U.S. territory.
This means that the agency must authorize any flight. So, if the agency system is not available, the aviation will be temporarily paralyzed.
This is currently occurring according to multiple reports indicating that the FAA ‘NOTAM’ system is down or not working at the time of writing this story.
FAA ‘NOTAM’ system not working or down
Several travelers report that their flights are grounded due to massive outage in the FAA ‘NOTAM’ system. According to the FAA, ‘NOTAM’ includes the following:
Due to outage in the FAA system, airports cannot transmit or receive the NOTAM. This means that they are missing key information for the approval of the takeoff or landing of flights.
The problem is resulting in travelers stuck due to indefinite flight delays:
Users of big airlines like American Airlines are taking to social media to express their frustration with the situation. The growing reports are reflected in the Downdetector platform.
@AmericanAir you have an inside scoop yet on the NOTAM failure/restoration? 🤞🏻 Source
Right now, several travelers are receiving notifications of flight delays, such as the following:
Technicians working on restoring the ‘NOTAM’ system
Fortunately, the FAA is already working on restoring the normal operation of the ‘NOTAM’ system. However, there is still no ETA for it.
We will be monitoring the situation to update this story as events unfold.
Operations across the National Airspace System are affected. We will provide frequent updates as we make progress. Source
Update 1 (January 11, 2023)
05:38 pm (IST): The FAA technicians continue to work on gradually restoring the ‘NOTAM’ system. There is their latest update on the situation:
06:07 pm (IST): In a recent tweet, FAA support has confirmed that they are still working to fully restore the Notice to Air Missions systems. Moreover, all domestic departures have been paused until 9 a.m. Eastern Time.
The FAA is still working to fully restore the Notice to Air Missions system following an outage.
While some functions are beginning to come back on line, National Airspace System operations remain limited. Source
06:50 pm (IST): In a new Tweet, FAA support has further assured that they are working to resolve the issue and departures should resume at 9 am ET.
07:57 pm (IST): In another follow-up, the FAA confirmed that the ground stop has been lifted and air traffic operations have begun resuming normally.
Update 2 (January 12, 2023)
08:35 am (IST): The FAA agency indicates that they are working to identify the causes of the problem to prevent it from recurring in the future.
Update 3 (January 20, 2023)
06:20 pm (IST): FAA has released a statement regarding the last week’s outage:
Featured Image: FAA on Twitter
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