More than 4,000 flights were delayed and more than 600 were canceled on Wednesday morning due to an outage of the system alerting pilots to obstructions prior to take-off.
The FAA’s system is intended to alert pilots to hazards, but failed at 2 a.m. Eastern time, according to reports. In response, all domestic departures were halted until 9 a.m. Eastern time per the FAA.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), incoming Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, issued the following statement in response to the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions system outage on Wednesday:
“The flying public deserves safety in the sky. The FAA’s inability to keep an important safety system up and running is completely unacceptable and just the latest example of dysfunction within the Department of Transportation. The administration needs to explain to Congress what happened, and Congress should enact reforms in this year’s FAA reauthorization legislation. This incident also highlights why the public needs a competent, proven leader with substantive aviation experience leading the FAA.”
