1 year ago
Takeoffs from airports across the country ground to a halt Wednesday morning as the Federal Aviation Administration scrambled to restore a failing computer system, with thousands of flights delayed so far.
The agency said it expects some flights will be able to resume around 9 a.m. Flight landings have been unaffected. The failure's cause remains unknown, though the FAA and White House have said that there's no evidence of a cyberattack.
The sudden failure of a system the FAA uses to notify pilots of temporarily closed runways and airspace, especially just days after Southwest Airlines had to delay thousands of flights over multiple days due to their own system failures, places Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg firmly in sight for a newly emboldened Republican caucus eager to pound the Biden administration over its failures.
Republicans have tried several tacks to poke holes in Buttigieg, who is still a contender for a future political run, without much traction.
President Joe Biden said Tuesday morning that he'd spoken to Buttigieg about the issue and asked DOT to "to report directly to me when they find out" what caused the outage.
Buttigieg tweeted that he was in touch with FAA about the issue.
English (US) ·