A failed computer system caused the Federal Aviation Administration to scurry to restore takeoffs from airports around the United States on Wednesday morning. Before the system was fully operational at 9 a.m., some 4,000 flights were delayed or cancelled.
The reason for the computer system malfunction, which resulted in the largest U.S. aviation shutdown in more than 20 years, is still a mystery. The mechanism in question makes sure that pilots are informed of crucial safety information, such as closed airports or runways.
Flights were grounded because of “irregularities in the communications that were going out [overnight] that suggested a wider systems issue,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN on Wednesday. By dawn, “there were still issues authenticating that the messages were going out,” and as a safety measure, the FAA ordered an hour-and-a-half-long ground stop for all aircraft.
Throughout the day, he acknowledged that there would be “ripple effects.” According to FlightAware, about 1,150 American flights have been cancelled thus far.
Buttigieg added, “Now we have to investigate how this happened in the first place—why the typical redundancies that would prohibit it from being that disruptive this time did not stop it from being disruptive.”
According to him, there has been “no direct evidence” of a cyberattack, but “we are also not going to rule it out until we have a greater knowledge of what’s taken place,” he added.
Just a few weeks prior, Southwest Airlines’ own computer failures caused many of its flights to be delayed or cancelled during the week leading up to Christmas. It puts Buttigieg squarely in the sights of the House Republican caucus, which has recently gained confidence and is keen to criticise the Biden administration’s policies. Additionally, it occurs at a time when the FAA is operating without a Senate-confirmed administrator due to the resignation of former director Steve Dickson in March.
Republicans have used a number of strategies to undermine Buttigieg, a former presidential candidate who is viewed as a future candidate for higher office, but they haven’t had much success.
The chairman of the House aviation subcommittee, Rep. Garret Graves (R-La. ), said he will hold the FAA responsible. The agency has come under fire recently for its outdated computer systems and other air-control technology, and before its current guiding statute expires in the fall of 2019, Congress needs to update it.
He stated, “The FAA’s failure today has caused pandemonium across the nation. “The last year has demonstrated the necessity for considerable upgrades throughout the aviation industry. We’ll ferociously seek accountability and design reforms that put the passenger experience first.
Before he lost his primary last year, former Rep. Rodney Davis, a prominent T&I Republican, advised his party to give Buttigieg some time to reflect on what transpired.
He noted that the House Transportation Committee, which Republicans now head, normally functions in a bipartisan manner and said, “Republicans need to give the secretary a chance to explain what happened too, without instantly going on the attack.”
DOT was ordered to “report straight to me when they find out” what caused the outage, according to President Joe Biden, who announced Tuesday morning that he had spoken to Buttigieg about the problem.
Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, also stated that her panel would be looking for policy solutions to the vulnerabilities revealed by Wednesday’s outage.
We will be looking into what caused this outage and how redundancy plays a role in preventing future outages, she said, as the Committee gets ready for FAA reauthorization legislation. The public requires a reliable air transportation network.
According to airline industry expert Robert Mann, the upheaval on Wednesday is “not a good look” for the FAA as it tries to demonstrate its capacity to control ongoing airline problems and hold the sector responsible.
To prevent an outage like the one that occurred on Wednesday, Mann said, “one would anticipate that an online, high-reliability system like this that is safety-sensitive would have fallback capabilities.” He claimed that although updating the FAA’s hardware and software makes sense, the procedure is difficult since it necessitates testing a new system while still using the old one.
Military aviation was unaffected by the disruption because the Department of Defense uses a different system.