During the news blitz of last weekend, what may have gone unnoticed is the fact that The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) experienced a temporary outage of its Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system on Saturday.
The NOTAM system is a critical aviation warning system that alerts pilots to potential hazards along flight routes, such as closed runways, equipment outages, and other safety-related information. The FAA quickly activated a backup system during the outage, which lasted several hours.
It was not the first time the system failed, either.
This is not the first time the NOTAM system has experienced an outage. The system also went down in January 2023 – which resulted in the first nationwide ground stop since Sept. 11, 2001, and caused the delay and cancelation of thousands of flights. The outage was quickly attributed to a contractor who unintentionally deleted files.Since the first NOTAM system failure, the FAA has taken critical steps to mitigate flight disruptions stemming from agency database malfunctions.
The former Transportation Sectary took no steps beyond scolding the airlines to resolve the problem.
Now Elon Musk and the new Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy have announced that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system1. This initiative comes in the wake of recent aviation incidents, including a deadly crash between a passenger plane and a Black Hawk helicopter near Washington DC that claimed the lives of 67 people.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk on Wednesday said the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will make “rapid safety upgrades” to the air traffic control systems with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).“With the support of President @realDonaldTrump, the @DOGE team will aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system,” Musk wrote Wednesday on the social platform X, which he own.
As of yet, there are no firm reports on plans or the focus of the fixes.
It is unclear what the group’s plans are for improving the nation’s aviation infrastructure and safety system.Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, confirmed on the social media platform X that he had spoken to the Department of Government Efficiency team about this new effort but didn’t provide any insights into the discussion.Neither the White House nor the Transportation Department immediately responded to a request for comment.
Given that a Japan Airlines flight hit the tail of a parked Delta plane at Seattle SeaTac Airport today, the deep dive into the air traffic control system is timely.
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) announced on social media Wednesday that Port of Seattle Fire, police and SEA operations responded to an incident just after 10:15 a.m. local time, on a ramp on a taxi line between S Concourse and the south airport maintenance hangars.The incident involved a taxing Japan Airlines aircraft “that appears to have struck” the tail of a parked Delta Air Lines aircraft, according to a statement from the airport, posted to X.The airport worked with both airlines to safely deplane passengers and bring them to the terminal, according to officials.”All passengers from [the] incident involving Japan Airlines flight 68 & Delta Air Lines flight 1921 have been deplaned [with] no reported injuries,” the airport wrote in another statement. “Airlines are working to accommodate passengers as needed. Airport response crews will be moving the aircraft off of the ramp taxiway.”
To conclude this piece, I give you Duff’s burn of Hilary Clinton.
And by “all do respect”, likely he means with none at all. Especially after the connections to the Clintons and USAID funding is revealed.
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