Flights across the US could be delayed Sunday after the Federal Aviation Administration’s critical NOTAM warning system experienced an outage —mere days after two deadly plane crashes rocked the nation.
Notice to Air Missions — which relays important information about possible hazards to pilots and airports — went dark Saturday night, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy wrote on X.
“The primary NOTAM system is experiencing a temporary outage, but there is currently no impact to the National Airspace System because a backup system is in place,” he said, noting the agency activated its contingency systems to keep flight operations running.
Duffy added that the FAA was working to restore this system fully, but that “there may be some residual delays” going into Sunday morning.
According to data collected by FlightAware, there were nearly 500 delayed flights in the US, and a little over 60 cancellations early Sunday morning.
That information includes important communications such as runway closures, warnings about birds, or low-altitude construction obstacles.
The critical system is separate from air traffic control, which keeps planes a safe distance from each other.
Duffy did not say when officials expected the system to be up and running again.
The outage comes days after two horrifying plane crashes. The mid-air crash Wednesday between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger plane landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport killed 67 people — making it the deadliest US air disaster since 2001.
On Friday night, a medevac plane returning a sick girl to Mexico crashed after taking off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport — killing all six people aboard and one person on the ground.
