More than 7,000 flights delayed due to FAA system outage
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The FAA says that the safety system is now fully restored but not before it caused chaos across the country. The system was offline for nearly two hours Wednesday.
According to FlightAware, more than 7,000 flights were delayed and experts tell CBS Philadelphia this may have been unnecessary.
Planes are now back in the air and taking off again at Philadelphia International Airport after a computer outage brought flights across the country to a standstill.
"It is the right call to act out of an abundance of caution, but no these disruptions should not happen," United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said.
Thousands of flights were delayed Wednesday after the FAA issued a ground stop and paused all domestic departures, which stranded passengers. The FAA reported an overnight outage of what's called the Notice to Air Missions System.
Pilots check the system before they fly. It alerts them to any closed runways, equipment outages, and potential hazards along the flight route.
"Somewhere overnight there was an issue with irregularities in the messages that were going out that reflected a bigger system issue, and this morning, as of seven o'clock there were still problems validating that the messages were going out," Buttigieg said.
On Twitter, the White House Press Secretary said, "There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes."
Air traffic gradually resumed around 9 a.m. once the FAA said its safety system was fully restored and the pause was lifted.
"There's lots of sources of this information," Arthur Wolk said. "I'm not sure a ground stop was called for, especially the turmoil that it creates."
Wolk is an aviation attorney in Center City. He says a ground stop is costly and doesn't happen often.
He adds dispatchers have multiple ways to transmit that safety data to pilots and says the FAA needs to identify what alternatives there were instead of keeping planes grounded on the tarmac.
"I think it's important for them to find out why it happened so they can put in place steps so it doesn't happen again," Wolk said.
More than 1,000 flights were also canceled because of this outage.
The Department of Transportation says the FAA is continuing to try and determine exactly what caused the outage.
