This is a breaking news alert.
Think the Southwest Airlines debacle was bad?
At least that was only one airline.
This morning, millions of Americans woke up to find ALL flights in the U.S. have been grounded.
Trending: FACT-CHECK: Is The Butt Baby Real?
Here’s the alert:
🚨 BREAKING: All flights grounded!
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is suffering a nationwide technical outage and order airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9 a.m. ET Wednesday morning.
— DailyNoah.com (@DailyNoahNews) January 11, 2023
If this brings echoes of 9/11 to mind, there’s a reason for that.
This is the first time we’ve seen this since that fateful day:
ALL domestic flights are grounded for the 1st time since 9/11. It’s just one transportation crisis after another under Biden. Instead of worrying about racist roads & gas powered cars, he should focus on REAL transportation & cyber security upgrades. https://t.co/niUGTISuxm
— Nicole Malliotakis (@NMalliotakis) January 11, 2023
From CBS:
All departing domestic flights in the U.S. are paused until 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time after an outage to an FAA computer system that affected thousands of travelers.
The FAA said in a tweet that the pause is until 9 a.m., but later told CBS News the pause was extended until 9:30 a.m.
The pause does not affect medical or military flights.
The agency also said in a statement Wednesday that it is still working to restore the Notice to Air Missions system, which went down and grounded flights across the country.
“While some functions are beginning to come back online, National Airspace System operations remain limited,” a statement said.
The major outage with the Notice to Air Missions System caused delays to pile up at airports including Philadelphia International Airport.
Pilots and airports rely on the system when making route plans, and it is critical to air travel. When it goes down, planes can’t safely fly.
Technicians are reportedly working right now to fix the issue.
Hundreds of people on social media were posting from the airport that they are stuck on the tarmac.
If you are traveling today, the best advice is to check with your airline before heading to the airport.
Update 3: The FAA is still working to fully restore the Notice to Air Missions system following an outage.⁰⁰The FAA has ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9 a.m. Eastern Time to allow the agency to validate the integrity of flight and safety information.
— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023
Here’s a live look at one airport:
**Breaking News** 🚨 📰
The FAA has had a computer system outage, all flights are now grounded nationwide. Stay safe everyone !@espn @NHL @NHLNetwork @TSNHockey @DKSportsbook #HockeyTwitter pic.twitter.com/kEwaI5TDTr— Kevin Weekes (@KevinWeekes) January 11, 2023
From Fox News:
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is suffering a nationwide technical outage and order airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9 a.m. ET Wednesday morning.
The outage comes as a result of the failure of the FAA’s NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system, which alerts pilots and other personnel about airborne issues and other delays at airports across the country.
“The NOTAM outage continued with no current estimated time of restoration,” the FAA website stated Wednesday morning.
“The FAA is working to restore its Notice to Air Missions System. We are performing final validation checks and repopulating the system now,” the FAA said in a statement.
“While some functions are beginning to come back online, National Airspace System operations remain limited,” the statement continued.
Most airlines had already chosen to ground their own craft due to the system’s failure early Wednesday. The failure has so far resulted in some 400 canceled flights across the U.S., according to FlightAware. The tracker also showed that more than 1,150 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were delayed.
United Airlines announced its decision to ground all of its aircraft until 10 a.m. ET due to the outage.
Hey, don’t worry….Mayor Pete will fix it!
(said no one)
Flight delays this morning?
No worries, Mayor Pete is on it! pic.twitter.com/UZRp28U5rd— Mike Opelka (@stuntbrain) January 11, 2023
I’m from the Government and I’m here to help!
The FAA when they had to cancel flights due to computer failure:pic.twitter.com/a0oEoJW8AL
— Danny Armstrong (@DArmstrong44) January 11, 2023
From CNN:
The United States was facing another major aviation disruption on Wednesday as the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a halt to all domestic flight departures after the system providing pilots with pre-flight safety notices went offline.
The FAA said in a statement it had ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9 a.m. Eastern Time while it tried to restore its NOTAMS — or Notice to Air Missions — system.
“We are performing final validation checks and repopulating the system now,” an earlier FAA statement said. “Operations across the National Airspace System are affected. We will provide frequent updates as we make progress.”
The association representing US airlines, Airlines for America says the outage is “causing significant operational delays.”
United Airlines said it has temporarily delayed all domestic flights.
American Airlines said in a statement it is “closely monitoring the situation, which impacts all airlines, and working with the FAA to minimize disruption to our operation and customers.”
The NOTAMS system that is experiencing the outage provides “critical flight safety operation information,” the airline said.
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted: ” I have been in touch with FAA this morning about an outage affecting a key system for providing safety information to pilots. FAA is working to resolve this issue swiftly and safely so that air traffic can resume normal operations, and will continue to provide updates.”
US President Joe Biden was also briefed on the situation, according to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
FlightAware, which tracks delays and cancellations, showed nearly 2,512 flights to, from and within the United States as being delayed as of 7:45 am ET, but only 126 flights canceled so far.
International flights bound for the United States were continuing to take off from Amsterdam and Paris despite the situation. A Schiphol Airport spokesperson told CNN that “a workaround had been issued” and flights were still departing from Amsterdam.
No flights have been canceled from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport, but delays were expected, according to the airport’s press office. Frankfurt Airport also told CNN it had not been impacted.
A London Heathrow Airport spokesperson told CNN that they were “not aware of canceled flights and that flights to the US had left recently.”
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