Critical FAA warning system outage could cause ‘residual’ flight delays today
Published at
Jessie Yeung, CNN
(CNN) — Flights across the US could experience “residual delays” Sunday morning as the Federal Aviation Administration works to restore a critical warning system that experienced an outage Saturday night, according to Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy.
“The primary NOTAM system is experiencing a temporary outage, but there is currently no impact to the National Airspace System because a backup system is in place,” he wrote on X, adding that the agency activated contingency systems to continue flight operations.
“The (FAA) is working to fully restore the system, and there may be some residual delays tomorrow morning,” he wrote. “We are investigating the root cause and we will provide updates.”
As of early Sunday morning, there were more than 360 delayed flights within, into or out of the US, and 59 cancellations, according to flight tracker FlightAware.
NOTAM, which stands for Notice to Air Missions, is a computer system that sends alerts to pilots about conditions that could affect the safety of their flights.
That could include information about lights being out on a certain runway, or a tower near an airport not having the required safety lights working, or an air show taking place in the air space nearby.
It is separate from the air traffic control system that keeps planes a safe distance from each other, but it’s another critical tool for air safety.
The system has gone down before; an outage in January 2024 briefly halted all US flights.
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