That was the cause of the recent flight chaos in the US

A damaged database at the US air traffic control authority caused the huge problems in US air traffic on Wednesday: heise.de reported Friday and referred to a report from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The authority also assured that there was still no evidence of a cyber attack.

As the US broadcaster CNN reported, US air traffic control noted on Tuesday evening that the associated database was defective. After rebooting the entire system on Wednesday, it was slow to respond and had to shut down.

“Hopelessly Outdated”

The corrupt database is the central repository of all so-called NOTAM for the US. These “Notice to Air Missions” contain short-term information about temporary or permanent changes that affect aviation operations. According to the CNN report, it is still being investigated whether an individual or “routine input” caused the damage to the database.

According to Reuters, work is already underway to modernize the “woefully outdated” NOTAM system, but the conversion at the 49 largest US airports will not be completed until the end of 2029. There are always problems in American air traffic. Less than two weeks ago, another critical air traffic control system caused flight delays at major Florida airports.

(dsc)