FAA Reveals Series of Changes to Aviation Computer System to Prevent National Groundstop from Happening Again

The US FAA has made a series of changes to overcome the groundstop. (photo: twitter @FAA)

JAKARTA - The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has told lawmakers it has made a series of changes to prevent a repeat of the January 11 outage of computer systems that disrupted more than 11.000 US flights.

Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen in a letter dated Friday seen by Reuters on Monday, January 30 stated that the agency had made changes in systems to prevent corrupted files from destroying backup databases.

Last week the FAA told lawmakers it had revoked access to the pilot messaging database by contractor personnel who accidentally deleted files in the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) database.

Nolen's letter said attempts to recover the files contributed to the outage and since then the FAA has adopted a one-hour delay in syncing databases that should prevent data errors from quickly reaching backup databases.

The FAA also said it "now requires at least two people to be present during maintenance of the NOTAM system, including one federal manager."

Reuters also reported some earlier increases. The FAA's action is the first national groundstop of flights departing since September 11, 2001, or the aftermath of al Qaeda's attacks on the United States.

The NOTAM system provides critical safety notifications to pilots, flight crew, and other users of US airspace.

"The NOTAM system consists of two interdependent systems," said the FAA letter. The old US NOTAM System, which is 30 years old, and the newer Federal NOTAM System, which it calls the foundation for its ongoing modernization efforts.

The main database and backup database are located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, while two additional backup databases are located in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

"The FAA began modernizing the NOTAM system in 2019 and is scheduled to retire the legacy US NOTAM System in mid-2025. The second phase of the modernization of the NOTAM system is planned for completion in 2030," the letter said. The FAA said it had conducted three system assessments since 2020 including the most recent in October.