After taking office in 2021, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg oversaw a renaming of the FAA system that failed today, delaying thousands of flights so it would be more “inclusive.”
The NOTAM system previously stood for Notices to Airmen, but Buttigieg’s office changed it to Notices to Air Missions in December 2021.
It was a decision they said ensured the name “encompassed all airmen and missions.” In addition to the name change, the system has been “modernized” in recent years.
It remains unclear whether this modernization or any of the changes played a role in the overnight outage that prompted the FAA to ground all flights in the United States on Wednesday morning, a drastic action not taken since 9/11.
The FAA’s website describes the “modernization” as “ongoing.” In a Dec. 22 post, the FAA said the transition would happen in two phases.
Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in an interview with MSNBC today, where he said the ground stop was to ensure “safety” without explaining the breakdown or why there was no backup system in place
A December 2021 FAA filing confirms the name change from Notice to Airmen to “the more accurate” Notice to Air Missions, which “more comprehensively encompasses all airmen and missions.”
According to the FAA, the NOTAM system is in the midst of a two-phase “modernization” that should bring it up to international standards
The first phase was described as “Format Familiarization Enhancement” while the second phase was called “ICAO NOTAM Format Transition”.
NOTAM headquarters is located in Warrenton, Virginia at the Air Traffic Control System Command Center.
It’s unclear how far along the modernization was complete when the system crashed today.
The aim of the update was to “improve the transmission of safety-critical information to aviation stakeholders”.
“The agency’s goal is to provide pilots, flight crew and other users of the National Airspace System (NAS) with relevant, timely and accurate NOTAMs,” said a statement on the FAA’s website.
“We have created a central location where pilots, operators, dispatchers and software developers can find all FAA NOTAMs. This will benefit all aviation stakeholders by reducing the number of places pilots need to look for NOTAMs.
Management has yet to explain why there was no digital backup system in place to smooth out the chaos.
A Delta plane takes off this afternoon after the unexplained glitch in Washington
More than 8,000 flights were delayed and more than 1,000 were canceled due to the cancellation
Instead, pilots reverted to the previous version and called flight dispatch centers for updates.
It was enough to keep night flights aloft, but by morning the number of calls became overwhelming and led to the FAA grounding all flights.
Biden and Buttigieg have come under fire for the decision, with some pilots calling it “unnecessary” and others “ridiculous.”
Ervin Coburn, a private pilot who lives in Washington, told : “We used to just talk on the phone.
“Right now everything is so digital that once the system goes down I don’t think they have enough staff to handle all the phone calls.
“They have all the up-to-date information – it’s just a matter of getting it to the pilots.
“These problems are always due to budget cuts or downsizing.”
In 2021, under Buttigieg’s tenure as Secretary of Transportation, the FAA changed the decades-old name from Notices to Airmen to Notices to Air Missions.
Coburn told that the FAA was also adding “features” to the system at the same time.
“About three years ago the FAA changed the name to announce air missions and added many more responsibilities under that function and now here we are,” he said.
Coburn added that while today’s crash may have been a harmless computer glitch, it sends a signal to America’s enemies about its vulnerability.
“We are in such a digital age now that almost anything could crash a system. You just have to have better skills at walking back and forth – I like technology, but I also like being able to use hardcore book material.
“One would think that the government would be prepared for this.
“The United States has the best airspace system in the world and we still have it, but this is a wake-up call in that when technology isn’t working – whether it’s hacked or cracked, for whatever reason, we should be in on it.” be able to go back to old school systems.
“It looks like we’re not prepared for this and the world is watching.
“This is a wake up call.”
Duane M. Moody, a software engineer in Florida who previously served as an aircraft rescue firefighter for the town of Billings, Montana, told there are enough controls in place to allow flights to proceed without NOTAMs.
“Air traffic control has to contact the pilots to let them know if there is a problem. If I had a hazard like a broken light on a runway I would notify ATC immediately and they would notify the pilot directly of the hazard before it was even logged as a NOTAM.
“Moreover, NOTAMs are only a guide – a pilot still has the discretion to consider them or not.
“I don’t know what caused the outage but it shouldn’t have affected travel the way it is now.
“Something’s seriously broken here,” he said.
Moody added: “You have to wonder if it’s the bureaucracy or maybe there was a more critical system related to NOTAM that went down.
“I’m not a big conspiracy theorist, but it could be something we don’t know.
“The last time air traffic was stopped was 9/11, so it’s supposed to be done today because of NOTAMs? It is ridiculous.
“I would rate incompetence about a cyber attack as a likelihood of what went wrong here,” he said.
In a video message this afternoon, Minister Buttigieg said flights had been grounded out of “great caution”.
“Safety is always the top priority, ensuring flight safety was the reason for the ground stop this morning,” he said.
What exactly led to the failure of the system remains unclear.