FAA grounds US flights following NOTAM laptop outage | Engadget

The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered airways to pause all home departures within the US till 9AM Eastern time whereas it is restoring its Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system. On early Wednesday morning, the company issued a discover by means of an Air Traffic Control System Command Center Advisory that the US NOTAM system has failed. “Operations across the National Airspace System are affected,” the FAA mentioned in a tweet, together with the data that it was working to repair the outage. In follow-up tweets, the company mentioned that whereas a number of the system’s features are coming again on-line, it was nonetheless working to completely restore the system. Pausing all home departures will give it time “to validate the integrity of flight and safety information.”

According to Simple Flying, that is the primary time the US NOTAM system has failed, affecting flights throughout the nation. People have been reporting delayed flights since not less than the night of January tenth, and Reuters says over 400 flights flying inside, from and into the US had been delayed as of 5:31AM ET right this moment, January eleventh. It’s unclear whether or not the FAA will have the ability to absolutely treatment the problem by 9AM. As the information group notes, a NOTAM comprises info that is important to flight personnel. Some NOTAMs for long-haul worldwide flights might have as many as 200 pages and embody particulars, equivalent to runway closures and low-altitude building obstacles.