Flights grounded – latest: Corrupted file blamed for 10,000 US plane delays

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said a corrupted database file was the reason behind the nationwide grounding of nearly 10,000 flights for the first time in two decades.

Preliminary findings traced the cause to a “damaged database file”, ruling out earlier speculation of a cyberattack. The same file reportedly corrupted both the main system and its backup.

An engineer “replaced one file with another” without realising the mistake, a senior official briefed on the internal review told ABC News.

“It was an honest mistake that cost the country millions.”

A key system used to notify pilots and ground staff of hazards and alerts suffered a “major failure” on Tuesday night. The fault lay with the NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system, which keeps pilots and other airport staff updated about aviation hazards and airport facilities.

The FAA was able to lift the ground stop at around 9am on the East Coast, but the damage had been done to schedules for the day.

Most airlines are waiving fees for passengers to rebook travel.

Key points

• Corrupted file blamed for nationwide flight delays

• FAA systems outage leave passengers stuck and fuming

• White House says no evidence of cyberattack

• Same system briefly malfunctions in Canada

White House says ‘no evidence of a cyber attack’ in FAA outage

05:30 , Oliver O'Connell

The White House said there is “no evidence of a cyber attack at this point” after a computer outage led the Federal Aviation Administration to halt aviation takeoffs across the US earlier in the day.

“The president has directed the Department of Transportation to conduct a full investigation into the causes and provide regular updates. Again, this is incredibly important to top priority the safety of Americans who are flying. We want to make sure that they’re safe,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

Andrew Feinberg reports from Washington, DC.

White House says ‘no evidence of a cyber attack’ after outage grounded flights

Corrupted file blamed for flight delays

05:18 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said a corrupted database file was the reason behind the nationwide grounding of nearly 10,000 flights for the first time in two decades.

Preliminary findings traced the cause to a “damaged database file”, ruling out earlier speculation of a cyberattack. The same file reportedly corrupted both the main system and its backup.

An engineer “replaced one file with another” without realising the mistake, a senior official briefed on the internal review told ABC News.

Corrupted file blamed for taking down US flight system and causing delays

Pilot association encourages patience as airlines get back on schedule

03:30 , Oliver O'Connell

The Air Line Pilots Association released the following statement after the resumption of air traffic operations this morning.

“We are in regular contact with [the FAA] and will continue to work with them and airline managements to ensure our aviation system continues to be as safe as possible,” it reads. “Airline pilots are #TrainedForLife to handle unique situations such as this.”

Later the group added: “We understand the disruptions and frustrations this is causing and we encourage patience by all as we work to return the air transportation network to normal operations.”

What to do if your flight was cancelled or delayed

02:30 , Oliver O'Connell

Thousands of travelers were stranded at US airports on Wednesday due to an hours-long computer outage at the Federal Aviation Administration.

More than 1,000 US flights were cancelled early in the day and almost 7,000 flights were delayed, according to the tracking site FlightAware. That number continued to climb in the afternoon.

Staying calm and knowing your rights can go a long way if your flight plans are disrupted, experts say.

Here’s some of their advice for dealing with a flight delay or cancellation:

Flight delayed or cancelled due to the FAA system outage? Experts share advice

What brought US domestic flights to a standstill?

01:30 , Oliver O'Connell

Joe Sommerlad explains how US airports ground to a halt this morning.

What brought US domestic flights to a standstill?

Watch: FAA lifts grounding order on flights after computer outage

00:30 , Oliver O'Connell

Recap: Flights grounded across US following major FAA system outage

Wednesday 11 January 2023 23:30 , Oliver O'Connell

Flights grounded across US following major FAA outage

Delta expects minimal disruption tomorrow

Wednesday 11 January 2023 22:50 , Oliver O'Connell

Airlines hope for return to normal operations on Thursday

Wednesday 11 January 2023 22:30 , Oliver O'Connell

The US aviation sector was struggling to return to normal following a nationwide ground stop imposed by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) early on Wednesday over a computer issue that forced a 90-minute halt to all US departing flights.

More than 10,300 flights have been delayed so far and over 1,300 canceled according to FlightAware in the first national grounding of flights in about two decades, industry officials said. Many officials compared the grounding to what occurred after the terror attacks on September 11, 2001.

The total number of flights was still rising but airline officials expressed confidence that normal operations could largely return by Thursday, absent new issues.

The cause of the problem with a pilot-alerting messaging system was unclear, but U.S. officials said they had so far found no evidence of a cyberattack. US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said an issue with safety messages sent to pilots prompted the outage.

Reuters

‘No evidence of a cyber attack’ says White House after outage grounded flights across US

Wednesday 11 January 2023 21:59 , Oliver O'Connell

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden had a “full briefing” on the matter. She further explained that the FAA has “no evidence of a cyberattack at this point,” and said Mr Biden has “directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes”.

Andrew Feinberg has the latest from Washington, DC.

White House says ‘no evidence of a cyber attack’ after outage grounded flights

Watch: Passengers walk back to gate after boarding due to FAA computer outage

Wednesday 11 January 2023 21:40 , Oliver O'Connell

Pilot association encourages patience as airlines get back on schedule

Wednesday 11 January 2023 21:22 , Oliver O'Connell

The Air Line Pilots Association released the following statement after the resumption of air traffic operations this morning.

“We are in regular contact with [the FAA] and will continue to work with them and airline managements to ensure our aviation system continues to be as safe as possible,” it reads. “Airline pilots are #TrainedForLife to handle unique situations such as this.”

Later the group added: “We understand the disruptions and frustrations this is causing and we encourage patience by all as we work to return the air transportation network to normal operations.”

More than 10,000 flights impacted by outage

Wednesday 11 January 2023 21:14 , Oliver O'Connell

By 4pm ET the total number of flights impacted by the FAA outage topped 10,000.

The total number of flights delayed within, into, or out of the US stood at 8,783, while the total number of cancellations was 1,276, according to FlightAware.

Nevertheless, the FlightAware MiseryMap showed some improvement. Most airports that had earlier recorded delays or cancellations to more than three-quarters of their flights had improved to around half of their flights being impacted. There are still notable problems in Charlotte, the DC area, and in Denver.

Flight delayed or cancelled due to the FAA system outage? Experts share some advice

Wednesday 11 January 2023 21:10 , Oliver O'Connell

Thousands of travelers were stranded at US airports on Wednesday due to an hours-long computer outage at the Federal Aviation Administration.

More than 1,000 US flights were cancelled early in the day and almost 7,000 flights were delayed, according to the tracking site FlightAware. That number continued to climb in the afternoon.

Staying calm and knowing your rights can go a long way if your flight plans are disrupted, experts say.

Here’s some of their advice for dealing with a flight delay or cancellation:

Flight delayed or cancelled due to the FAA system outage? Experts share some advice

White House stands behind Buttigieg

Wednesday 11 January 2023 20:56 , Oliver O'Connell

President Joe Biden remains confident in US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg following recent air travel disruptions, including a 90-minute nationwide order to ground all US departing flights and thousands of complaints in the fallout of Southwest Airlines’ holiday travel chaos.

The president “respects the secretary and the work that he has been doing” to hold airlines accountable, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on 11 January.

Alex Woodward reports.

White House stands behind Buttigieg after fallout from airline disruptions

Canada suffers same mysterious air system outage as US

Wednesday 11 January 2023 20:40 , Oliver O'Connell

Canada’s air traffic system suffered a similar outage to the one that occurred in the US for a brief period on Wednesday.

US air travel was badly disrupted by the failure of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Notice to Air Missions system (NOTAM) overnight on Tuesday, forcing a full ground stop of domestic aviation on Wednesday morning.

Nav Canada, the Canadian national air navigation service provider, released a statement just after 12.30pm as US airlines struggled to resume normal service.

Read more:

Canada suffers same mysterious air system outage as US, delaying more flights

Buttigieg says ground stop was ‘right call'

Wednesday 11 January 2023 20:20 , Oliver O'Connell

The cause of the problem with a pilot-alerting NOTAM system is unclear, but US officials said they had so far found no evidence of a cyberattack.

US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN an issue with overnight “irregularities” with safety messages sent to pilots prompted the outage.

He said the ground stop was the "right call" to make sure messages were moving correctly and there is no direct evidence of cyberattack.

The outage occurred at a typically slow time after the holiday travel season, but demand remains strong as travel continues to recover to near pre-pandemic levels.

Reuters

House committee chair wants to know how this can prevented in future

Wednesday 11 January 2023 20:04 , Oliver O'Connell

Representative Sam Graves, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said he had many questions concerning the outage and the subsequent problems caused.

“I expect the FAA to provide a full briefing to members of Congress as soon as they learn more,” he said.

Mr Graves added that he also expected the Transportation Department to “do right by passengers it has wronged”.

The committee, he said wanted to “make sure that we know what went wrong, who’s responsible, and how this is going to be prevented in the future”.

Senate Commerce committee to investigate FAA computer outage

Wednesday 11 January 2023 19:57 , Oliver O'Connell

A US Senate panel will review the cause of a Federal Aviation Administration computer system outage that sparked a nationwide ground stop and delayed or canceled more than 7,000 US flights, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell said on Wednesday.

The outage occurred overnight on Tuesday and US flights were slowly beginning to resume departures on Wednesday.

"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," Ms Cantwell said. The ground stop was lifted by the FAA shortly before 9am ET.

Many lawmakers from both parties urged action to prevent a future disruption.

Reuters

Boebert calls Buttigieg ‘clueless' and not qualified. Twitter reacts.

Wednesday 11 January 2023 19:38 , Oliver O'Connell

Rep Lauren Boebert has hit out at Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg over the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to order a groundstop at US airports this morning.

The Republican lawmaker from Colorado tweeted: “Every plane in America is currently grounded due to a system error.”

“Mayor Pete, bravo,” she added. “This is what happens when you hire clueless liberals for jobs they aren’t qualified to do.”

Other Twitter users were not impressed with Ms Boebert jab at Mr Buttigieg with many pointing out her own limited qualifications, accusing her of making a cheap attack, and calling her an attention seeker and a fraud.

TV host and producer Andy Cohen shot back: “Hiring a clueless wingnut is certainly paying off for your constituents, you psychopath.”

Tired of airport disruption? Why not try the train?

Wednesday 11 January 2023 19:19 , Oliver O'Connell

‘Nightmare’ as passengers believed they were hostages after 29-hour Amtrak delay

Which airlines and airports are worst affected by the delays?

Wednesday 11 January 2023 19:10 , Oliver O'Connell

As of 2.00pm per FlightAware:

Major airlines, from most impacted to least: Southwest (48 per cent of flights delayed), American Airlines (44 per cent), Spirit (40 per cent), Delta (37 per cent), United (36 per cent), and JetBlue (31 per cent). West coast-focussed airlines such as Alaskan and Hawaiian show a modest number of delays as the outage occurred at a time when they have a lower number of scheduled flights.

The worst affected airports for delays are Baltimore (49 per cent of flights delayed); LaGuardia (44 per cent); Atlanta, Chicago Midway and Orlando (39 per cent); Denver and Nashville 37 per cent; and Reagan National, Austin, and Tampa (36 per cent).

Almost every major airport now has more than 25 per cent of its flights delayed.

If you are travelling today, check the status of your flight with your airline, as airports will be busier than usual.

Problems in Canada?

Wednesday 11 January 2023 19:01 , Oliver O'Connell

NAV Canada, the country’s air navigation service provider, has tweeted out a message stating that its own NOTAM system is experiencing an outage affecting newly issued notices.

So far no delays are reported relating to the outage.

What brought US domestic flights to a standstill today?

Wednesday 11 January 2023 18:50 , Oliver O'Connell

Joe Sommerlad explains how today’s air travel turmoil came about.

What brought US domestic flights to a standstill?

Schumer: ‘no clear evidence of outside interference'

Wednesday 11 January 2023 18:30 , Oliver O'Connell

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he has spoken to Secretary Buttigieg about the restoration of air travel.

He adds: “While at this moment there’s no clear evidence of outside interference, the FAA needs to get to root causes so this doesn’t happen again.”

American offers passenger option to rebook with no fees

Wednesday 11 January 2023 18:20 , Oliver O'Connell

In a statement regarding the resumption of operations, American Airlines says that more than 950 mainline and regional flights have departed, but some 450 have been cancelled and another 850 have been delayed.

American has resumed operations now that the Federal Aviation Administration's nationwide ground stop has ended. We continue to closely monitor the situation, which impacts all airlines, and are working to minimize further disruption to our customers and operation. To support our customers whose travel was affected by the FAA system issue, we're providing additional flexibility to rebook their travel plans today and tomorrow without any additional fees.

Buttigieg rejects suggestion FAA should reimburse passengers.

Wednesday 11 January 2023 18:10 , Oliver O'Connell

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has rejected the suggestion that the Federal Aviation Administration should reimburse affected travellers who have had flights cancelled or delayed by the decision to order a ground stop.

He told MSNBC: “We’re not a for-profit company selling tickets ... We’re always going to err on the side of safety.”

Watch: Biden says cause of outage unknown

Wednesday 11 January 2023 17:50 , Oliver O'Connell

Delta issues fare difference waiver to delayed customers

Wednesday 11 January 2023 17:40 , Oliver O'Connell

Delta Air Lines says it remains connected with the FAA as it works to mitigate the impact of the ground stop the agency implemented earlier today.

“A fare difference waiver will give customers additional flexibility even if their flight isn’t delayed or cancelled,” the airline says.

One of the immediate concerns for airlines will be congestion within airports making getting things back on track more difficult. The move by Delta allows passengers to switch flights and avoid airports completely today even if their flight is not affected.

Wednesday 11 January 2023 17:30 , Oliver O'Connell

Ranking Democrat Member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Rick Larsen of Washington state issued the following statement regarding the FAA-ordered ground stop today:

"This morning, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an order pausing all domestic flight traffic due to a disruption to their Notice to Air Missions system," Ranking Member Larsen said. "I spoke with Secretary Buttigieg about this development and will continue to monitor this disruption to our air travel system until it is resolved."