The US Federal Aviation Authority has already granted permission to resume takeoffs nationwide, after suspending operations for several hours due to a failure in the main flight information system. President Joe Biden ordered an investigation to determine whether this was a cyberattack.
According to the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), a failure in the air mission notification system was at stake. He initially announced on Twitter: “We are performing final health checks and reloading the system now. Operations across the National Airspace System affected.”
Later, the FAA added that “some functions” had already become active, but in order to ensure the safety of flights, takeoffs were suspended.
In the latest update on Twitter, the FAA noted that “air traffic operations are gradually resuming” and “the ground station has been lifted,” so domestic flights can now take off. We are continuing to investigate the cause of the initial problem.”
Cleared Update Number 2 for All Stakeholders: ⁰⁰ The FAA is still working to restore the Notice to Air Missions system after the outage. ⁰⁰ While some jobs are starting to come online, operations of the National Airspace System remain limited.
– FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023
Update 3: The FAA is still working to fully restore the Air Force Mission Notification system after the outage. The FAA has ordered airlines to ground all domestic flights until 9 a.m. ET to allow the agency to verify flight information and safety.
– FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023
Update 5: Normal air traffic operations are gradually resuming across the United States following the overnight outage of the Notice to Air Missions system providing safety information to flight crews. The ground station has been raised.
We continue to investigate the cause of the initial problem
– FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023
Authorities estimate that more than 4,000 flights have been delayed and nearly 700 cancelled.
White House spokeswoman Karen Jean-Pierre said in a post on the social networking site Twitter that at this time there was “no indication” that the comment was related to a cyberattack.
“The Department of Transportation informed the President of the outage affecting FAA systems. There is no indication of a cyberattack at this time, but the President has directed the Department of Transportation to conduct an investigation,” he affirmed.
Quoting the US president later in a statement, he said he had been in contact with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and that the reasons were not yet known.
“I asked him to inform me directly as soon as he knows what happened. They still don’t know, but they hope to find out in a few hours so that necessary action can be taken,” he said.
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