Damaged Database Likely Cause for NOTAM Outage, FAA Says

'No evidence of a cyberattack,' FAA said following a preliminary investigation.

Meg Godlewski

Wednesday, January 11, 2023 at 09:55 PM ET

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The FAA blames a damaged database file for the NOTAM issue that ground air traffic to a halt. [Credit: Shutterstock]

Key Takeaways:

The FAA attributed the NOTAMs system outage, which led to a ground stop and thousands of delayed and canceled flights, to a damaged database file.
The agency found no evidence of a cyberattack and implemented a temporary pause on all domestic departures to validate flight and safety information.
NOTAMs are critical for pilots, providing essential information on abnormal airspace conditions, making the system's malfunction highly disruptive to air travel.

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A damaged database file is the likely root cause of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAMs) system outage that resulted in a ground stop and thousands of delayed and canceled flights Wednesday, according to the FAA.

“Our preliminary work has traced the outage to a damaged database file,” the agency said in a statement released Wednesday evening. “At this time, there is no evidence of a cyberattack. The FAA is working diligently to further pinpoint the causes of this issue and take all needed steps to prevent this kind of disruption from happening again.”