Source: Some flights resume after FAA halts U.S. departures to fix system outage

The previously named NOTAMS, renamed to Notices to Air Missions, stopped working, grounding all U.S. air traffic. The name change was probably not the cause of the system crash, although it may have cost time and money that might have been diverted from IT operational issues. (IT operations is now thought to be the cause of the system crash due to use of a poor data backup scheme for a mission critical application.)

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has not been an effective leader of the DoT.

Flights in the air could continue until landing. Departures were canceled nationwide. This capture from FlightRader24 is a nearly empty airspace in the western U.S.

Captured from FlightRadar24.com

UPDATE

My daughter and her boyfriend were on a flight that took off minutes before the airspace shutdown. Their flight was to go to Atlanta to transfer to a connecting flight. However, due to the airspace shutdown there was no place for their plane to go upon arrival in Atlanta and they were diverted to Greensboro, NC. Initially they were told to stay on the plane but were later permitted to disembark. Later, their flight continued to Atlanta – where they of course had missed their transcontinental connection that left before they got to ATL.

Delta put them on another flight later, but when they arrived at the gate, with tickets in hand, the Delta gate agent said they were not on that flight and was not interested in helping them. They then went to another less busy gate where the gate agent said they were both booked now on a later flight. But not really. She was booked but he had not been booked on that flight – he discovered this only because he called Delta and after being on hold for 30 minutes spoke to someone who discovered the error. They then went to yet another Delta gate agent who finally issued boarding passes to both of them – but they still did not have seat assignments until boarding their final connecting flight. They arrived at their destination at the end of that, after having been up since 3 am.

Peter Buttigieg needs to be fired. He has accomplished nothing substantive during his time as Sec. of Transportation and gone well past his Peter Principle management level.

Coldstreams