NBAA Urges Enhanced Redundancies for NOTAM System
Until recently, few travelers had ever heard of a Notice to Air Missions or NOTAM, nor did they know that the system used to generate those notices could cause widespread travel misery. They quickly found out when they arrived at the airport in the morning. The Federal Aviation Administration computer system that compiles and distributes essential safety information for pilots went kaput. That temporarily grounded all flights nationwide and touched off a cascading air traffic jam that will take at least a day to unclog. More than 1,300 flights were canceled, and 9,000 were delayed by early evening on the East Coast because of the outage, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware. The system has been around for over half a century and has evolved from paper to computers. It’s in the process of being updated.
The ground stop was caused by contractors when they inadvertently deleted files while working on the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, the Federal Aviation Administration says. The agency said in a statement Thursday that a preliminary review found the shutdown happened as the contractors worked to “correct synchronization between the live primary database and a backup database.” Investigators so far found no evidence of malicious intent or a cyberattack.
NBAA stressed that long-stranding issues with the U.S. NOTAM system must be addressed, adding that yesterday’s outage of the system further highlighted the need for action following a ‘glitch’ in the NOTAM system. The association noted that it has been asking the agency to improve the resiliency of the NOTAM system since 2018 to ensure that backup capabilities are in place. Co-chairing the Aeronautical Information System (AIS) reform coalition, NBAA has been working with a cross-section of the industry—including airlines, airports, and other stakeholders—to push for the introduction of additional systems, redundancies, and upgrades.
The U.S. has the largest and safest air traffic control system, maintained by Heidi Williams, NBAA senior director of air traffic services and infrastructure and AIS coalition co-chair. She added, however, that the NOTAM outage served as a reminder that when problems are identified, proven solutions must be developed.