ATOOC: NOTAM My Problem

2023-01-18

On January 11th, some corrupt files in the antiquated FAA software system caused a nationwide outage across the United States which grounded flight departures across the country. The system which went down (NOTAM) provides advisories to pilots on safety-critical conditions at airports and other areas aircraft may traverse, including everything from warnings about bird activity to runway construction. So, as you can imagine, it's a critical system for pilots in ensuring safety. In this ...

On January 11th, some corrupt files in the antiquated FAA software system caused a nationwide outage across the United States which grounded flight departures across the country.

The system which went down (NOTAM) provides advisories to pilots on safety-critical conditions at airports and other areas aircraft may traverse, including everything from warnings about bird activity to runway construction.

So, as you can imagine, it's a critical system for pilots in ensuring safety.

In this recording, you can hear the confused team at JFK grappling with the situation.

After investigation into the problem, the issue seems to be rooted in a software developer error and the inclusion of a corrupt file in the fragile, outdated software.

The issue was resolved by the following day, but not before over 1 million people had their flight plans disrupted.

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