X

Thousands of Flights Delayed After FAA Outage Caused by 'Damaged Database File'

An overnight outage grounded flights across the US, but delays persist as air traffic resumes. The FAA says it traced the outage to a damaged database file.

Carrie Mihalcik Former Managing Editor / News
Carrie was a managing editor at CNET focused on breaking and trending news. She'd been reporting and editing for more than a decade, including at the National Journal and Current TV.
Expertise Breaking News, Technology Credentials
  • Carrie has lived on both coasts and can definitively say that Chesapeake Bay blue crabs are the best.
See full bio
Alix Langone Former Reporter
Alix is a former CNET Money staff writer. She also previously reported on retirement and investing for Money.com and was a staff writer at Time magazine. Her work has also appeared in various publications, such as Fortune, InStyle and Travel + Leisure, and she worked in social media and digital production at NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt and NY1. She graduated from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and Villanova University. When not checking Twitter, Alix likes to hike, play tennis and watch her neighbors' dogs. Now based in Los Angeles, Alix doesn't miss the New York City subway one bit.
See full bio
Sean Keane Former Senior Writer
Sean knows far too much about Marvel, DC and Star Wars, and poured this knowledge into recaps and explainers on CNET. He also worked on breaking news, with a passion for tech, video game and culture.
Expertise Culture, Video Games, Breaking News
See full bio
Carrie Mihalcik
Alix Langone
Sean Keane
2 min read
An employee sits in the cockpit of a passenger aircraft at Los Angeles International Airport

Air travel has been disrupted across the US. 

 Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

A major FAA system outage caused by a "damaged database file" has continued to disrupt air travel across the US on Wednesday, according to the Federal Aviation Authority.

The FAA ordered a temporary halt to all domestic flight departures early Wednesday to restore its Notice to Air Missions system, or NOTAM, a critical system that alerts commercial airlines to real-time flight hazards and restrictions.

The FAA said in its latest statement on Wednesday that its "preliminary work has traced the outage to a damaged database file" and that it is continuing a thorough review of the root cause of NOTAM's system outage. The FAA also said it found no evidence of a cyberattack and that it's "working diligently to further pinpoint the causes of this issue and take all needed steps to prevent this kind of disruption from happening again."

Although the FAA resumed normal air traffic operations just before 6 a.m. PT, thousands of flights were already delayed by then and threw off the normal day's schedule as airlines tried to play catchup. 

As of 5:30 p.m. PT, more than 9,971 flights in or into the US were delayed and over 2,844 canceled, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware. 

"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 ground stop has been lifted," the FAA said in a tweet at 5:50 a.m. PT Wednesday. 

Airports across the country are urging people to check their flight status.

See Also