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A damaged file may have caused the outage in an FAA system, leading to travel chaos

Travelers wait in the terminal as an Alaska Airlines plane sits at a gate at Los Angeles International Airport early Thursday.
Stefani Reynolds
/
AFP via Getty Images
Travelers wait in the terminal as an Alaska Airlines plane sits at a gate at Los Angeles International Airport early Thursday.

This is a developing story. For the latest updates, follow our live digital coverage here.

The Federal Aviation Administration is resuming domestic flight departures after it reported a technology outage reported overnight.

The FAA's system for alerting pilots and airports of real-time hazards, called NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions), went dark around3:28 a.m. ET.

"THE FAA is experiencing an outage that is impacting the update of NOTAMS. All flights are unable to be released at this time," the FAA said in an advisory announcing the issue.

More than 4,314 flights had been delayed within, into or out of the United States when the pause was lifted. Another 700 had been cancelled.

The FAA had opened a hotline to address equipment issues by 5:58 a.m. ET, as some NOTAM functions began to come back on line.

Airports and airlines nationwide were warning on Twitter before the ground stop that delays would be expected.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Emily Olson
Emily Olson is on a three-month assignment as a news writer and live blog editor, helping shape NPR's digital breaking news strategy.
Rachel Treisman (she/her) is a writer and editor for the Morning Edition live blog, which she helped launch in early 2021.
Jaclyn Diaz
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