DENVER — The Federal Aviation Administration's nationwide ground stop lasted a few hours on Wednesday morning, but will continue to have a ripple effect through the day at the Denver International Airport.
The ground stop was triggered by a computer outage early Wednesday that resulted in thousands of delays at airports across the United States. Nationwide, more than 3,700 flights were delayed and more than 640 were canceled, according to the Associated Press. All flights were safe to land during the ground stop.
As the FAA worked to restore its Notice to Air Missions system (NOTAM) — which contains information essential to personnel concerned with flight operations — the delays racked up. The FAA ordered a full ground stop on all domestic departures until 7 a.m. MT. Just 10 minutes before then, it said normal air traffic operations were resuming gradually and the outage had been fixed.
Flights are starting to resume, but there is a backlog of passengers.
At the Denver International Airport, 458 flights were delayed and 61 were canceled as of 9:20 a.m., according to Flight Aware. Departure delays are averaging 55 minutes as of 7:15 a.m.
"We also expect that many flights today will be delayed and some will be canceled due to the ground stop," an airport spokesperson said. "Passengers should check their flight status with their airline before heading to DEN."
A second ground stop was implemented at the Denver airport due to airspace volume for all departing flights, according to the FAA at 9:10 a.m. This was lifted just before 10 a.m.
Several other airports are grounded due to weather — planes at Ronald Reagan Washington National are grounded due to wind, and planes at Minneapolis-St Paul International and Salt Lake City International are deicing. In addition, La Guardia flights are delayed for an average of 68 mins. due to equipment outage, according to the FAA.
While the White House initially said that there is no evidence of a cyberattack in connection with the NOTAM outage, President Joe Biden said “we don’t know” and told reporters he’s directed the Department of Transportation to investigate the cause of the disruption, the AP reported.
Some medical flights got clearance, it continued. The outage did not impact military operations.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg tweeted at 6:54 a.m., saying the safety system had been restored and the ground stop was lifted.
"I have directed an after-action process to determine root causes and recommend next steps," he tweeted.