WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1, 2023 8:50 A.M. UPDATE: The FAA issued the following, "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. We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem."

ORIGINAL STORY: Breaking news this morning as flights all across the United States have been grounded on the orders of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

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The FAA announced a computer glitch and that it was working diligently to restore its Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system which is a system that alerts pilots of any potential hazards along their flight routes. According to Reuters, the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system is critical as it offers pilots information on runway closures, bird hazards, and other obstacles.

According to FlightAware.com, the glitch grounded approximately 1,200 flights in the United States on Wednesday morning.

At 6:29 a.m., the FAA posted an advisory notice to its official Twitter page stating,

“We are performing final validation checks and repopulating the system now. Operations across the National Airspace System are affected.”

The FAA also noted that it would be providing updates frequently as its team worked to restore the system. At 7:19 a.m., the FAA released another statement to its Twitter page halting all domestic flights,

The FAA has ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9 a.m. Eastern Time to allow the agency to validate the integrity of flight and safety information.

According to NBC, in addition to the approximately 1,200 flights delayed, more than 100 flights were also listed as canceled via the FlightAware online flight tracker.

Pete Buttigieg, secretary of transportation, posted on Twitter that he had been in touch with the FAA and that the “FAA is working to resolve this issue swiftly and safely so that air traffic can resume normal operations, and will continue to provide updates."

Karine Jean-Pierre, White House Press Secretary released a statement on the issue saying,

The President has been briefed by the Secretary of Transportation this morning on the FAA system outage. There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes. The FAA will provide regular updates.

An 8:15 a.m. update from the FAA stated that flights out of Newark Liberty International airport and Atlanta Airport had resumed because of air traffic congestion in the air at those airports but all other flights were still not expected to resume until 9 a.m. Eastern.

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