FAA lifts grounding orders that halted over 1,000 US flights after system outage at aviation body

Normal air traffic operations resumed gradually across the United States on Wednesday, January 11, 2023, following a technical failure in the system that feeds flight crews with safety information. 

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted a ground halt on flights hours after ordering airlines to postpone all domestic departures until 9:00 am. Eastern Time to allow the agency to evaluate the accuracy of flight and safety data. 

In its latest tweet, the FAA said, "Following an overnight outage of the Notice to Air Missions system, that provides safety information to flight crews, normal air traffic operations are gradually resuming across the United States. The ground stop is no longer in effect. We are still investigating the cause of the initial problem."

Previously the FAA said that it was working on restoring its Notice to Air Missions system after an overnight outage and that departures at Newark Liberty International Airport and Atlanta International Airport had resumed due to air traffic congestion in both areas."

It added, "We expect departures at other airports to resume at 9:00 am ET." 

"All flights in the skies are safe to land. Before taking off, pilots checked with the NOTAM system. A Notice to Air Missions notifies pilots of closed runways, equipment outages, and other potential dangers along a flight route or at a place that may have an impact on the flight," the FAA said. 

Following a technical failure in the system, hundreds of flights across the United States were grounded on Wednesday morning.

"The FAA is trying to restore its Notice to Air Missions System. We are currently doing the system's last validation checks and reloading it. Operations across the National Airspace System are impacted," said FAA in the morning.

According to FlightAware, a flight tracking service, on Wednesday morning, over 1,200 flights inside, into, or out of the United States were delayed, and over 100 were cancelled. 

(With inputs from PTI)

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• Federal Aviation Administration system
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• United States