The FAA has identified Spatial Front as the contractor that was involved in the Jan. 11, 2023, crash of the NOTAM system that grounded all air traffic for more than 12 hours.
According to a report in The Hill, FAA officials updated Congress on the issues with the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, identifying Spatial Front as the contractor “that provides first-level services for the system.”
Agency officials also told Congress that “all Spatial Front personnel involved in the situation have lost their access to FAA buildings and systems while the agency investigates,” according to The Hill report.
In an earlier statement, FAA officials revealed that the NOTAM crash was caused when contractors accidentally deleted files in the system, noting they were working to synchronize NOTAM’s primary live database with its backup system when the files were deleted.
I think sticking to the facts in article posted by “News” staff is important. Stating that “all” air traffic was grounded for 12 hours is not at all factual. I flew from KSBN to KORD via a United flight early the morning of this outage. After several delays I was able to make my flight from KORD to KPHL just in time to make my 14:00 meeting with a client outside Philadelphia, PA. Flightaware showed plenty of planes airborne during even the national ground stop. “ALL” air traffic was not grounded for 12 hours. I can appreciate the need for dramatic openings, there were plenty of factual options. Please keep up the good work that General Aviation News does, and avoid getting caught up in mainstream news bad habits!!
ELF. Dead humpbacks.
We know.
Autocorrect strikes again.
RANSOMWARE
Orrrrrr…. That entire story is BS and other indicators of what might have happened are worth reviewing. The huge jump in the value of BitCoin right when the event reached peak indicate a large purchase made on the exchange. LARGE. Tens of millions if not a 100. The more probable cause here is a RandomWare attack on the NOTAM system which the FAA paid off as quickly as they could to bring services back online. It’s that or the FAA is made up of completely inept bureaucrats who have no business running any technology based system. So really, probably both. A random ware attack and the FAA are morons.