[A critical aviation warning system that went down Saturday has been restored to working order, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Sunday.
“It went down last night. A backup system was activated. As of right now, the lead system is online and working,” Duffy told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
When the primary NOTAM system went down Saturday night, Duffy posted on Twitter “there may be some residual delays” to flights Sunday morning.
“This is the system where pilots download their information; their flight details before they fly. So, if the NOTAM system doesn’t work, planes don’t fly,” Duffy said. “But there was minimal disruption.”
By shortly before noon ET Sunday, there were 1,313 delays and 80 cancellations to flights within, into or out of the US, according to flight tracker FlightAware.
NOTAM, which stands for Notice to Air Missions, is a computer system that sends alerts to pilots about conditions that could affect the safety of their flights. That could include information about lights being out on a runway, a tower near an airport not having the required safety lights working – or an air show taking place in the air space nearby.
It is separate from the air traffic control system that keeps planes a safe distance from each other, but it’s another critical tool for air safety.
The system has gone down before; an outage in January 2024 briefly halted all US flights.
“There’s a process in place right now to get this system fixed. We want to expedite that and get this new system in place,” Duffy said. “This is an old system that needs to be upgraded.”
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