Flights between US, Israel unaffected amid American airport system failure

The NOTAM system that is essential for pilots to get an idea of the circumstances in the flight failed.

 A Delta plane sits at the International Terminal at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in March 2020. (photo credit: CURTIS COMPTON/ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION/TNS)
A Delta plane sits at the International Terminal at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in March 2020.
(photo credit: CURTIS COMPTON/ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION/TNS)

All flights across the US were grounded due to a system failure on Wednesday. 

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed to Metro that the United States Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, which informs pilots of circumstances relating to the flight, has failed.

According to American media, more than 700 flights in the US as well as to and from there were delayed, and more than 90 were completely canceled.

"Operations across the National Airspace System are affected," the FAA said in a statement.

"The FAA is working to restore its Notice to Air Missions System. We are performing final validation checks and repopulating the system now," it said.

 A plane sits on the airfield as flight cancellations mount during a cold weather front as a weather phenomenon known as a bomb cyclone hits the Upper Midwest, at Midway International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., December 22, 2022. (credit: MATT MARTON/REUTERS)
A plane sits on the airfield as flight cancellations mount during a cold weather front as a weather phenomenon known as a bomb cyclone hits the Upper Midwest, at Midway International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., December 22, 2022. (credit: MATT MARTON/REUTERS)

A spokesperson from the Israeli Airports Authority said on Wednesday that there were no changes to the schedule of flights incoming or outgoing to the US from Israel.

Flights beginning to resume after FAA system outage

US flights were slowly beginning to resume departures and a ground stop was lifted after the FAA scrambled to fix a system outage overnight that forced a halt to all US departing flights.

"Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the US 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.

Senate Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell said the panel plans to review the cause of a Federal Aviation Administration computer system outage that sparked a nationwide ground stop and delayed or canceled more than 4,000 US flights.


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"We will be looking into what caused this outage and how redundancy plays a role in preventing future outages. The public needs a resilient air transportation system," Cantwell said.