US resumes flight operations after FFA system crash

The United States Federal Aviation Administration has said that it has lifted a ground stop that brought flights to a virtual standstill earlier on Wednesday morning. A system outage had caused massive disruptions at airports across the United States.

“Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the US following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted,” the FAA tweeted.

The agency has not immediately indicated what caused the outage but said, “We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem.”

All flights across the US were grounded due to a system failure at the FAA. According to a Notice to Airmen, the impact on flights was said to likely be global.

The FAA earlier noted that there was no estimated time of restoration and that flights would be unable to resume until resolved.

It then ordered all airlines to suspend domestic flight departures until 9am ET. According to the body, this is to “Allow the agency to validate the integrity of flight and safety information” — no word yet on any similar blanket suspensions on international flights waiting to depart to the US from abroad.