The White House said there is “no evidence” that the Federal Aviation Administration‘s nationwide system outage on Wednesday morning was caused by a cyberattack.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also confirmed that President Joe Biden has been briefed on the situation and has directed an investigation into the systemic outage.
FAA CONFIRMS SYSTEM OUTAGE CAUSING GROUNDED FLIGHTS
“The President has been briefed by the Secretary of Transportation this morning on the FAA system outage. There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes. The FAA will provide regular updates,” Jean-Pierre said in a tweet.
The President has been briefed by the Secretary of Transportation this morning on the FAA system outage. There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes. The FAA will provide regular updates.
— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) January 11, 2023
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg separately confirmed in a tweet Wednesday that he has been “in touch” with officials at the FAA.
“I have been in touch with FAA this morning about an outage affecting a key system for providing safety information to pilots. FAA is working to resolve this issue swiftly and safely so that air traffic can resume normal operations, and will continue to provide updates,” Buttigieg said.
In an update, the FAA confirmed planes that are in the sky can land, but until the systems are restored, takeoffs will continue to be affected.
“All flights currently in the sky are safe to land. Pilots check the NOTAM system before they fly. A Notice to Air Missions alerts pilots about closed runways, equipment outages, and other potential hazards along a flight route or at a location that could affect the flight,” the FAA said in a tweet.
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The agency has stated that it is looking to have flights resume nationwide by 9 a.m. EST, with departures at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia already resuming due to “air traffic congestion.”
