More than 5,000 U.S. flights were delayed Wednesday after a Federal Aviation Administration computer outage grounded planes across the country.
The overnight outage hit the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions System, which provides pilots with safety information.
As of 10:13 a.m. Eastern time, there had been 5,417 total delays of flights within, into or out of the U.S., according to flight tracking service FlightAware. The service also reported 907 total cancellations within, into or out of the U.S. today.
The outage sent airline stocks falling before the market opened. Southwest Airlines Co.’s
LUV,
stock was down 1.9% before the opening bell and American Airlines Group Inc.
AAL,
was down 0.5%, while United Airlines Holdings Inc.
UAL,
was down 0.8%. Delta Air Lines Inc.’s
DAL,
stock fell 0.4%, Spirit Airlines Inc.
SAVE,
fell 0.2% and JetBlue Airways Corp.
JBLU,
fell 0.1%. The U.S. Global Jets ETF
JETS,
was down 0.4%.
Also read: Airline stocks tumble as FAA computer outage grounds flights in U.S.
“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 FAA tweeted at 8:50 a.m. Eastern time. “The ground stop has been lifted.”
“We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem,” the FAA added.
Earlier, the FAA had tweeted that flights already in progress could safely land. “Pilots check the NOTAM system before they fly,” the FAA said. “A Notice to Air Missions alerts pilots about closed runways, equipment outages, and other potential hazards along a flight route or at a location that could affect the flight.”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted that he has been in touch with the FAA about the outage.
President Joe Biden was briefed on the situation by Buttigieg, according to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who said that the president directed the Department of Transportation to conduct a full investigation into the outage. At this stage, there is no evidence of a cyberattack, according to Jean-Pierre.
A Notice to Air Missions contains “information essential to personnel concerned with flight operations but not known far enough in advance to be publicized by other means,” according to the FAA’s website. The notice provides the abnormal status of a component of the National Airspace System, not the normal status, according to the FAA.