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An internet technology outage caused by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike led to airport disruptions and flight cancellations all over the world Friday, but it could have been worse. In 2023, another computer problem cancelled every takeoff in the United States. Last January, IT personnel at the Federal Aviation Administration accidentally took down the Notice to Air Missions System because they “unintentionally deleted files while working to correct synchronization between the live primary database and a backup database.”
The NOTAM system is crucial because it tells every plane and airport in the country whenever something is happening that might disrupt a flight. For example, last week a NOTAM alert was sent for Seattle–Tacoma International Airport because a fox was spotted on the runway.
While the NOTAM system was down for nearly two hours as the FAA struggled to get the problem resolved, more than 6,000 flights were delayed for nearly every airline the country. During the CrowdStrike outage, Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways flights operated as normal even as Delta, United, American, and Spirit customers had to figure out how to rebook their trips.
The NOTAM outage was so disruptive that Congress passed the NOTAM Improvement Act of 2023 in less than five months to fix the problem. In fact, the FAA has until the end of September to do so and create a backup system. Though CrowdStrike is certainly having a bad day, it’s not clear whether this incident will provoke the same level of federal intervention.