FAA grounds flights after computer outage

Nearly 5,000 flights were delayed and almost 900 were canceled by 10 a.m. Wednesday after a computer outage led to a Federal Aviation Administration grounding order. The FAA lifted the order by 9 a.m., but delays and cancellations were expected to snowball. The FAA said they are working to restore the Notice to Air Missions System, which advises pilots on potentially adverse flight conditions.

What caused the outage? The White House said there was no evidence of a cyberattack. President Joe Biden later said the cause was unknown and ordered the Department of Transportation to investigate. More than 21,000 flights were scheduled to take off Wednesday in the United States. The delays and cancellations started on the East Coast and then spread west, disrupting flights at nearly every major airport.

Dig deeper: Listen to Nick Eicher’s report on The World and Everything in It podcast about a cat that spent three weeks lost in an airport.