U.S. National Route Failure
Mukesh Kumar
| 01-09-2023
· Vehicle Team
At around 6:30 a.m. EST on the 11th, the FAA announced that all domestic flights were suspended due to a malfunction in the air mission notification system.
As a result, as of 3:00 p.m. that day, 8,609 flights were delayed and 1,251 flights were canceled in the U.S. A large number of passengers were affected and had to wait for several hours at the airport.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Buttigieg said on the 11th, will review the aviation system's failure to understand the root cause of air traffic chaos that occurred.
The U.S. White House press secretary also issued a statement late on the 11th that President Joe Biden had been briefed on the failure of the air mission notification system and that there was no evidence that it was a cyber attack.
According to CNN 11 news, the system problems began on the afternoon of the 10th.
The FAA found corrupted files in the air mission notification system and the backup system used in emergencies and then decided to restart the system on the morning of the 11th.
The restart process took about 90 minutes, which also led to the suspension of all domestic flights for a time that day.
Currently, air traffic operations around the United States are gradually returning to normal, will continue to investigate the cause of the failure of the air task notification system.
What problems with the U.S. aviation system were revealed by the system failure?
Although after repair, the system failure was eliminated around 9:00 a.m. EST on the 11th, flights across the U.S. are gradually resuming.
However, the chain reaction caused by the early morning grounding continued throughout the day.
According to FlightAware, a flight tracking website, more than 9,000 flights were delayed and about 1,300 flights were canceled across the United States on Wednesday, local time.
Shares of major U.S. airlines fell collectively in the pre-market on news of the system failure.
However, the shares of major U.S. airlines began to recover on Wednesday after the FAA announced that flight operations were gradually returning to normal.
The reason behind the system failure is still under investigation, but several experts mentioned in an interview with CNBC that the incident warns that the U.S. aviation system needs a "redundant design".
The head of the U.S. security professional consulting firm said the incident did alert them to the need for cybersecurity design and redundant systems across the U.S. aviation ecosystem.
The incident also revealed vulnerabilities in passenger protection.
Currently, at the federal level, there are no U.S. regulations requiring financial compensation for delayed flights.
Experts note, however, that the flight disruption was not the fault of the airline, but in response to the incident, the airline should compensate passengers for the resulting hotel and other expenses.