By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced on Sunday morning that a critical system providing safety messages to pilots is now back online after experiencing an outage that began the previous night. This incident marks the latest challenge for the U.S. aviation system in the past week, as revealed by U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
Duffy highlighted the aging infrastructure of the FAA’s “Notice to Air Mission” (NOTAM) system, emphasizing the pressing need for an upgrade. The outage, which occurred late on Saturday, prompted the agency to initiate a hotline for disseminating updates every 30 minutes to airlines. “We are currently conducting an investigation into the root cause of the outage,” the FAA stated in a release on Sunday.
The NOTAM system plays a crucial role in providing essential safety notices to pilots, flight crews, and other users of U.S. airspace. Notices conveyed through this system could pertain to various safety-related issues such as malfunctioning taxiway lights, nearby parachute activities, or temporary closure of runways due to construction.
During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” program, Duffy reassured that the disruption caused by the outage was minimal. He emphasized the urgent need to rectify the outdated system and expedite the implementation of a new and improved system. “This is an antiquated system that urgently requires modernization,” Duffy stressed.
Concerns were raised that the outage might lead to flight delays on Sunday. FlightAware, a flight tracking company, reported a total of 1,133 U.S. flight delays on Sunday, although it remains unclear how many were directly linked to the NOTAM system failure.
A previous NOTAM system outage in January 2023 resulted in the first nationwide U.S. ground stop since 2001, impacting over 11,000 flights. In response to this incident, the FAA announced plans in 2023 to phase out the older NOTAM system by mid-2025. The outage in 2023 was attributed to an inadvertent deletion of files within the NOTAM system by an FAA contractor.
The U.S. aviation sector has faced a tumultuous week, with significant incidents occurring one after another. The collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and a military helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday resulted in the tragic loss of 67 lives, marking the first fatal U.S. passenger airline crash since 2009 and the deadliest air disaster in the U.S. since 2001. Subsequently, on Friday, a medical evacuation plane crashed shortly after takeoff in Philadelphia, claiming the lives of all six individuals aboard, as well as a person on the ground.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Will Dunham)
