On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration suffered a computer outage that prompted delays for thousands of flights across the United States, CBS News reports.
The FAA announced a pause on all flight departures at around 7 a.m. ET on Wednesday morning. In a series of tweets, the agency said all airlines were ordered to pause domestic departures for at least two hours. The FAA then clarified that all flights in the air at the time of the pause were safe to land. According to flight tracking website FlightAware, over 4,000 flights suffered delays as a result of the outage. By 9 a.m., the pause was lifted and flights began resuming.
When leaving the White House this morning, Biden said he spoke with Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, and was told "they don't know what the cause is" yet.
"The President has been briefed by the Secretary of Transportation this morning on the FAA system outage,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted. "There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes. The FAA will provide regular updates."
It wasn’t just airlines that suffered huge delays, though, as an Amtrak Auto Train from Washington, D.C. to Orlando, Florida arrived approximately twenty hours later than planned on Wednesday. Per ABC News, the journey was scheduled to take 17 hours but ultimately took 37 hours due to a freight derailment. "The train was detoured off its normal route in order to continue operating south," Amtrak confirmed.
