Flights across US grounded amid system failure, Biden orders probe

All US flights have been grounded after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it experienced a computer outage.

All the flights across the United States were grounded on Wednesday following the incident, a source with knowledge of the matter told US media.

"Operations across the National Airspace System are affected," the FAA said in a statement.

According to Press TV, FAA said it had "ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures until 09:00 a.m. Eastern Time to allow the agency to validate the integrity of flight and safety information."

The FAA's system for alerting pilots and airports of real-time hazards, called NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions), went dark around 03:28 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. It said it was still working to fully restore the NOTAM system following the outage.

More than 2,500 flights within, into and out of the United States were delayed as of around 08:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday morning, according to online flight tracker FlightAware. Nearly 250 flights were listed as cancelled.

US President Joe Biden said aviation authorities were still unaware what had triggered the grounding of the fights across the US. 

Meanwhile, the White House announced that it had "no evidence" of this being caused by a cyberattack "at this point."

“There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a tweet.

"The President directed (the Department of Transportation) to conduct a full investigation into the causes,” she said.

Jean-Pierre said the FAA would provide regular updates.

ME