U.S. flights were slowly beginning to resume departures and a ground stop was lifted after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) scrambled to fix a system outage overnight that forced a halt to all U.S. departing flights, Reuters reports.
“Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted. We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem” the FAA said in a Tweet.
The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) had ordered a grounding of all departing aircraft in the United States due to a computer outage in their Notice to Air Missions System, per The Associated Press.
This system is used by pilots to consult “Notices to Air Missions” (NOTAMs) prior to flight, which contain information about potential impacts on flights, such as runway construction or the potential for icing.
The system was previously telephone-based, but has since moved online.
This led to thousands of flight delays and cancellations across the US.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment on whether this was a cyber attack.
President Joe Biden has directed the Department of Transportation to investigate the cause of the disruption.
