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The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration ended a ground stop measure that temporarily prevented flights from departing nationwide after reporting a glitch in the national flight control system, allowing some flights to resume.
The White House said there was currently “no evidence” of a cyberattack having caused the system outage, the source of which the FAA is investigating.
The FAA earlier ordered airlines to delay all domestic departures until at least 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time as it worked to restore its Notice to Air Missions System, which alerts pilots to potential hazards on their routes.
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White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said there was “no evidence of a cyberattack at this point” and that U.S. President Joe Biden has requested an investigation into the cause of the nationwide system outage.
Speaking to White House reporters, Biden said: “Aircraft can still land safely, just not take off right now,” adding the FAA expects that in “a couple of hours they’ll have a good sense of what caused it and will respond at that time.”
Germany’s Lufthansa and Air France are both continuing to operate flights to the U.S., as the latter said it was monitoring the situation, Reuters reports. Around 2.9 million passengers were set to travel in the U.S. on Wednesday.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, and the U.K.‘s British Airways both confirmed to Semafor that flights were operating as normal.
This is a developing story. Please check back soon for updates.
