Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) is demanding answers from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg following a mass system failure that left U.S. flights grounded early Wednesday morning.
“Safety is always the top priority, but leaving millions of travelers stranded and delayed to their destinations is not okay. I expect @FAANews and @SecretaryPete to immediately provide a FULL briefing to Congress on what happened and how they will ensure it NEVER happens again,” the senator demanded:
Safety is always the top priority, but leaving millions of travelers stranded and delayed to their destinations is not okay.
I expect @FAANews and @SecretaryPete to immediately provide a FULL briefing to Congress on what happened and how they will ensure it NEVER happens again.
— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) January 11, 2023
Scott’s demand follows an outage of the Notice to Air Missions System, which had U.S. flights grounded Wednesday morning. At 8:50 a.m. ET, the FAA announced that normal air traffic operations were “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,” the agency said, adding that it is continuing to look into the cause of the outage:
Update 5: 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
— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023
According to White House chief of staff Ron Klain, President Biden “directed DOT/FAA to restore the system quickly and safely, and to determine causes.”
Biden added Wednesday morning that they do not know what the cause of the outage is:
President Biden tells reporters this morning he has been briefed on the FAA system outage.
"Aircraft can still land safely, just not take off right now. They don't know what the cause of it is." pic.twitter.com/M6k4b4ilZT
— Reshad Hudson (@ReshadHudson) January 11, 2023
Klain added that Buttigieg would provide Biden with an update later in the morning:
.@POTUS was briefed by @SecretaryPete early this morning. @POTUS directed DOT/FAA to restore the system quickly and safely, and to determine causes. @SecretaryPete will provide @POTUS an update later this morning.
— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) January 11, 2023
Over 7,500 U.S.-related flights were delayed and 1,100 canceled as of 12:45 p.m. ET.
Buttigieg appeared on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports following the outage and said he is not ruling out a domestic or foreign attack as the cause of the chaos.
“Again, what I would say is there’s no direct indication of any kind of external or nefarious activity. But we’re not yet prepared to rule that out,” he added.
This story is developing.
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