NOTAM Blackout

The importance of NOTAMS and how the recent system issues impacted aviation operations.

NOTAMs, notice to all airmen/air missions are a crucial component of flight planning. They are issued by national authorities for reasons such as but not limited to hazards such as air shows, parachute jumps, and glider or micro-light flying, flights by important people such as heads of state, temporary flight restrictions, closed runways, taxiways, etc, unserviceable radio navigational aids, military exercises with resulting airspace restrictions, unserviceable lights on tall obstructions, and temporary erection of obstacles near airfields (e.g. cranes).

On Wednesday, January 11, 2023, outrage broke out when thousands of flights were either delayed or canceled due to NOTAM system outages nationwide. The systems went out late Tuesday and sparked safety concerns by the time morning came on the East Coast, and the FAA ordered a nationwide pause on domestic flight departures. The FAA is still working to determine the root cause of the outage in NOTAM and said that so far, there has been no evidence of a cyberattack. A hotline was opened to address equipment issues early in the morning, as some NOTAM functions began to come back online. By around 9 a.m. ET, the system had been fully restored and flights began to resume. Airports urged travelers check with their airlines for updates. As of noon on the East coast, around 7,000 flights within or out of the country had been delayed, and just over 1,000 had been canceled altogether, according to data from the tracking site FlightAware.

Secretary Pete Buttigieg responded to the blackout by saying “The FAA has determined that the safety system affected by the overnight outage is fully restored, and the nationwide ground stop will be lifted effective immediately. I have directed an after-action process to determine root causes and recommend next steps”. When President Biden was asked about the dilemma, he responded by saying “They don't know what the cause is. I told Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to report directly to me when they find out”. Senator Ted Cruz even responded to the disruption by calling it a “completely unacceptable” dysfunction within the Department of Transportation.

NOTAMs are critical to maintaining safe operations within the National Airspace System (NAS) and without them, pilots would not be aware of potential hazards along flight routes or at their destination airports.

References

Olson, E. (2023). A damaged file may have caused the outage in an FAA system leading to travel chaos. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2023/01/11/1148340708/faa-notam-ground-stop-flight-delay

SKYBrary Aviation. (n.d.). Notice to airmen (NOTAM) https://www.skybrary.aero/articles/notice-airmen-notam