USA flights stopped. FAA computer outage.

[ChiefT]

BREAKING: FAA computer outage causing US flights to be grounded nationwide

https://www.google.com/amp/s/ukaviation.news/breaking-faa-computer-outage-causing-us-flights-to-be-grounded-nationwide/

[AreOut]

"computer outage" - don't they have redundant systems?

[Pilot DAR]

'Sounds like the NOTAM system is down?

[Lyneham Lad]

Article in The Times.

All US flights grounded after computer glitch (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/374112ea-91a5-11ed-8b99-f233af7a7956?shareToken=61c426756f05011dcbb445ef27613fec)

Snippet:-
All flights in the United States have been grounded because of a failure with a government agency’s computer system.

In a statement, the Federal Aviation Administration said: “The FAA is working to restore its notice to air missions [Notam] system. We are performing final validation checks and repopulating the system now. Operations across the national airspace system are affected.”

[uffington sb]

The BBC are saying it’s a glitch in the Notice to Air Missions System.
Do they call NOTAMS that in the states? I thought it was Notice to Airmen.

[bafanguy]

The BBC are saying it’s a glitch in the Notice to Air Missions System.
Do they call NOTAMS that in the states? I thought it was Notice to Airmen.

Well, it used to be called Notice To Airmen...but wokeness changed it to "missions". :oh:

[uffington sb]

I realised just after I posted, that NOTAM had the dreaded M word in it!
thanks for the clarification.

[Carbon Bootprint]

The Federal Aviation Administration early Wednesday ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures (https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/faa-flights-united-planes?mod=article_inline) until 9 a.m. ET, to allow the agency to restore a critical system that alerts pilots and crew to safety advisories and other information for flights.

The agency, which oversees and manages the aviation network in the U.S., said it is working to restore its so-called Notice to Air Missions System. “Operations across the National Airspace System are affected,” the FAA press office said. It said it was performing final checks to get the system back up and running.

Reportedly some international flights to London and Tokyo were still taking off.

Source: WSJ (https://www.wsj.com/articles/faa-suffers-glitch-to-crew-alert-system-potentially-affecting-flights-in-u-s-11673437407?mod=hp_lead_pos1)

[Dave Gittins]

FR 24 looks pretty busy if there is a ground stop.

On a more careful look at the detail ... most of them in the air are freighters. UPS, DHL, Prime, FedEx etc. Don't they need NOTAMS ?

[ChiChi1895]

Since I live in the States, Notice to Air Missions just does not have the ring to the ears as Notice to Airmen. Between this and the Southwest meltdown, is anyone changing their summer holidays in the United States?

[Consol]

This could mean that flights take off without ten pages for each airport detailing .1° changes to bearings, obstacles 4 feet tall near an airport and a couple of bulbs blown on a Cat 3 installation. This is clearly as big a risk to aviation as the 737Max MCAS events!

[Maninthebar]

This could mean that flights take off without ten pages for each airport detailing .1° changes to bearings, obstacles 4 feet tall near an airport and a couple of bulbs blown on a Cat 3 installation. This is clearly as big a risk to aviation as the 737Max MCAS events!

To be fair, the relevant issues should have been reported too.

[konradeck]

On the Twitter (i cannot attach the link), FAA says:
"Update 4: The FAA is making progress in restoring its Notice to Air Missions system following an overnight outage. Departures are resuming at
@EWRairport (https://twitter.com/EWRairport) and @ATLairport (https://twitter.com/ATLairport) due to air traffic congestion in those areas. We expect departures to resume at other airports at 9 a.m. ET."

[dragon6172]

Will they issue a NOTAM that the NOTAM system is not working?

[konradeck]

13:50Z:
Update 5: Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted. We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem,

[island_airphoto]

Will they issue a NOTAM that the NOTAM system is not working?
ROFLMAO!

[bafanguy]

The only thing I can guess might have created such a big stink is the regulatory obligation to provide preflight information to the crews. I'm not much of a jailhouse lawyer but these regs come to mind. Read them and kill some brain cells:

FAR Part 91.103(a) 121.539 121.551. 121.601(a)

[ATC Watcher]

This could mean that flights take off without ten pages for each airport detailing .1° changes to bearings, obstacles 4 feet tall near an airport and a couple of bulbs blown on a Cat 3 installation. This is clearly as big a risk to aviation as the 737Max MCAS events!
Well taxying into a closed taxi way or ignoring WIP somewhere can ruin your day if no-one tells you before . I also understand that in the US you can have commercial operations in non-towered airpports . and there are legal considerations too as mentioned above.

[BFSGrad]

Another feather in the cap of Mayor Pete.

The FAA Administrator position has been vacant since March 2022. At best, poor optics.

[konradeck]

This could mean that flights take off without ten pages for each airport detailing .1° changes to bearings, obstacles 4 feet tall near an airport and a couple of bulbs blown on a Cat 3 installation. This is clearly as big a risk to aviation as the 737Max MCAS events!
If you consider that Restricted zones (eg TFRs in US, different types met around the world) and dangerous events are also published by NOTAMS, this is a kind of a problem not to have current information before you hit the (air-)way...

[Consol]

Well taxying into a closed taxi way or ignoring WIP somewhere can ruin your day if no-one tells you before . I also understand that in the US you can have commercial operations in non-towered airpports . and there are legal considerations too as mentioned above.
Which is the point of my sarcastic point as the important ones are drowned out by the CYA nonsense.

[ATC Watcher]

Which is the point of my sarcastic point as the important ones are drowned out by the CYA nonsense.
Sorry missed your point , NOTAM nonsense?, tell me about it ! the OPSGRPOUP runs a very good action against this CYA , or as we say more politely here " administrative umbrella " that has reached ICAO , but the old lady is very slow....but we'll get there one day ..

[fitliker]

IT asks “Did you try turning off and on again ? “

[MechEngr]

Used to have cleaners unplug computers so they could vacuum. Bad enough, but they would only unplug one of them and the back-EMF noise would kill the other one. There was a service contract, but it still lost the use of a computer until it was repaired.

Being as this is the FAA, a hamster died on its wheel and they needed to requisition a new hamster.

[Ikijibiki]

I'm not suggesting this is what happened, but it would not surprise me if this was the result of a software or operating system upgrade gone sideways or misconfiguration of a router or other network device.

[lederhosen]

Or god forbid you did not have to play hunt the needle in the haystack through 30 pages of irrelevant information to find anything you really needed to know. My personal least favorite pages were where the Turks and Greeks were using it to posture about their border. The NOTAM system has been pretty much unfit for purpose for a long time. Maybe this will focus a bit of attention on a very poor system and somebody will be motivated to make some improvements, but somehow I doubt it.

[uxb99]

I often wonder if these things are coincidental or if foreign powers are hacking us?
Post offices in Northern Ireland hit by computer problems - BBC News (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-44243049)

[Gne]

Cybersecurity meets aeronautical data. What could go wrong?

Gne

[tdracer]

Well, it used to be called Notice To Airmen...but wokeness changed it to "missions". :oh:
Yep, Mayor Pete found it critically important to change the definition to be properly woke. Making sure the system actually worked, not so much :ugh:

Almost a year ago, the Federal Aviation Authority, under the helm of transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, announced that the aviation briefing known as NOTAM, or Notice to Airmen, would undergo a name change. NOTAMs are unclassified notices distributed from an aviation authority to all pilots that contain essential information regarding conditions, hazards, system concerns, or other flight operations. NOTAM, Mayor Pete’s Department of Transportation declared, wasn’t gender inclusive and, as of December 2, 2021, it should henceforth be referred to Notice to Air Missions, not Airmen.While Mayor Pete preoccupied his department with scrubbing the bigotry out of an acronym, it never occurred to the Biden administration’s Chief Diversity Hire that the system itself might need some tending-to. That was until this morning when an outage caused the NOTAM system to fail and all flights in the US were grounded for several hours, something that hasn’t happened since 9/11.

Today’s FAA system failure came just weeks after Southwest Airlines ruined Christmas when its outdated computer system led to thousands of canceled flights — something that the transportation secretary brazenly mocked, seemingly unaware that the Biden administration had given billions of dollars in handouts to Southwest, with no oversight. As he wagged his finger at the airline, Mayor Pete was oblivious that his own computers might need a tune-up.
Today’s FAA system failure came just weeks after Southwest Airlines ruined Christmas when its outdated computer system led to thousands of canceled flights — something that the transportation secretary brazenly mocked, seemingly unaware that the Biden administration had given billions of dollars in handouts to Southwest, with no oversight. As he wagged his finger at the airline, Mayor Pete was oblivious that his own computers might need a tune-up.

It is a human trait to focus on cheap and lofty rhetoric rather than costly, earthy reality. It is a bureaucratic characteristic to rail against the trifling misdemeanor rather than address the often-dangerous felony. And it is political habit to mask one’s own failures by lecturing others on their supposed shortcomings. Ambitious elected officials often manage to do all three.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Chairman of House Transportation and Infrastructure, Rep. Sam Graves (R. - Missouri 6th) issued this statement.

"Americans awoke this morning to the largest ground stop of our National Airspace System since 9/11. While it appears at this time that the Notice to Air Missions – or NOTAM – system malfunction was not the result of a cybersecurity breach, it highlights a huge vulnerability in our air transportation system. Just as Southwest’s widespread disruption just a few weeks ago was inexcusable, so too is the DOT’s and FAA’s failure to properly maintain and operate the air traffic control system.

“This incident also underscores the number of empty desks and vacant offices at the FAA. Centuries of combined experience has gone out the door in the past several years and far too few of these positions have been filled. The FAA does not run on autopilot – it needs skilled, dedicated, and permanent leadership in positions across the agency, starting with the Administrator’s office. It’s been nearly a year since the FAA has had a permanent Administrator, and with the current nominee’s troubling resume, the Biden Administration seems to think this lack of qualified leadership can go on indefinitely.

“I have many questions about what transpired today, and I expect the FAA to provide a full briefing to Members of Congress as soon as they learn more. I will also be leading an oversight letter with my colleagues to make sure that we know what went wrong, who’s responsible, and how this is going to be prevented in the future. And just as DOT expected Southwest to make passengers whole after their leadership failures, I expect a prompt update on DOT’s efforts to do right by the passengers it has wronged.”

[MechEngr]

The problem has been attributed thusly

"An engineer “replaced one file with another,” the official said, not realizing the mistake was being made. As the systems began showing problems and ultimately failed, FAA staff feverishly tried to figure out what had gone wrong. The engineer who made the error did not realize what had happened."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/computer-failure-faa-impact-flights-nationwide/story?id=96358202

It doesn't seem like lack of maintenance, just fat fingers. Good on Rep. Graves for tying up legislative efforts and grandstanding for an IT fix. Now if he will step up and deal with the millions of hours lost each year to errors users make with Excel, that would be worthwhile. From past experience, I don't want a leadership position dealing with an IT problem.

For those thinking redundancy would help - that simply piles on the problems of synchronization and the problems of pushing out-of-date or conflicting information which is why each user could not simply record and use their stored list on their own.

Anyone already in the FAA who wants to be in these particular cross-hairs: https://www.usajobs.gov/job/697213300

[WillowRun 6-3]

MechEngin
What legislative efforts are being put at risk of getting "tied up?", and where in the Committee Chairman's statement do you see any suggestion or indication he intends to micromanage IT matters? That certainly hasn't been his record on the Committee to date.

Certainly the statement has, or is intended to have, pretty blunt political impact. But, so what? After the Secretary's remarks about Southwest - widely seen as cheap shots or at least highly opportunist on his part - the other side gets its turn too.

[9 lives]

NOTAM, Mayor Pete’s Department of Transportation declared, wasn’t gender inclusive and, as of December 2, 2021, it should henceforth be referred to Notice to Air Missions, not Airmen

Airmen CertificationVerification of Airmen Certificate Information

So will this change to "Airmissionaries"?

[MechEngr]

MechEngin
What legislative efforts are being put at risk of getting "tied up?", and where in the Committee Chairman's statement do you see any suggestion or indication he intends to micromanage IT matters? That certainly hasn't been his record on the Committee to date.

Certainly the statement has, or is intended to have, pretty blunt political impact. But, so what? After the Secretary's remarks about Southwest - widely seen as cheap shots or at least highly opportunist on his part - the other side gets its turn too.

He could do something else that does require legislation, something productive, which this does not. It sounds like staffers will set up hearings, demanding appearances from people who are there to gain him notoriety and not to fix problems. He was complaining that there wasn't an FAA head to do the micromanaging. He would, of course, not dirty his hands. He seems really quiet about most things, though he has tried to get GA pilots with failed medicals back into the pilot seat.

The current acting administrator seems sufficiently qualified https://www.faa.gov/about/key_officials/nolen so Rep. Graves is even farther off base with his suggestion that the office is empty and no one is running the operation.

Sure - it's funny that Pete got a pie in the face and should also have kept it to himself. I'd have gone with "It's a private business and no one died. Next question."

The FAA goof-up is a flaw that existed but didn't emerge when Elaine (with a literal connection to the Senate) was in charge, just she was lucky enough to sit through an administration that did far worse for air travel.

In any case the adult response to a cheap shot is not another cheap shot. If Rep. Graves knew something about software management in the last 21 years in office he should have brought it up.

[summer1]

Since I live in the States, Notice to Air Missions just does not have the ring to the ears as Notice to Airmen. Between this and the Southwest meltdown, is anyone changing their summer holidays in the United States?
I totally agree! I feel like you can say either one for it though.

[Maninthebar]

A corrupted database is apparently to blame. Though this raises questions as to
1. How the database became corrupted
2.What mechanisms are in pace to detect corruption
3.Whether any shadow copy is in place (or should be) for failover in such a circumstance

FAA grounds all US departures over critical systems outage • The Register (https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/11/faa_grounds_all_us_departures/)

[DaveReidUK]

"Americans awoke this morning to the largest ground stop of our National Airspace System since 9/11. While it appears at this time that the Notice to Air Missions – or NOTAM – system malfunction was not the result of a cybersecurity breach"

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

[ATC Watcher]

A corrupted database is apparently to blame. Though this raises questions as to
1. How the database became corrupted
2.What mechanisms are in pace to detect corruption
3.Whether any shadow copy is in place (or should be) for failover in such a circumstance
FAA grounds all US departures over critical systems outage • The Register (https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/11/faa_grounds_all_us_departures/)

It would seem from various reports that a corrupted file or database update was uploaded into the system. Since such updates occurr normaly in the middle of the night, as it was the case here , I suspect a databse upgrade..
If indeed this is the case it brings a few questions : when/how the file or the update was tested, passed safety analysis, was validated and who signed it to go on live.

I have seen munerous ATC systems breakdown due to wrong or poorly tested software updates in my career that I would not be surprised if this was the case here. Back up ? Ah !. cost lots of money, never used , not maintained, etc.. Not saying this was the case here or in the FAA, but that is what I experienced elesewhere. I also see sub contracting IT maintenance and even software development and updates transfered to the lowest bidder , often not even located in your own country . (good example is lastest large ATC system failure in Switserland )
Reducing costs has become the mantra everywhere nowadays , but as long as the general public will continue to blelieve that 50$ tickets are the norm and expect this , and that a good and successful manager is someone that reduces staff and costs , nothing is likely to change much .

,,

[WillowRun 6-3]

MechEngr

Reverse order.
Not in Washington, it isn't ... the response among adults in D.C. to a cheap shot is to wrestle in the ring into which your opponent or challenger has thrown you. The Committee has not only oversight roles but will originate the reauthorization bill (if one moves forward), as I'm sure you know, making it completely germane for the incoming Chairman to level the playing field of current official pronouncements, whether pricey, cheap or indeterminant.

What relevance may be found in former Sec'y Chao's good fortune in not having this evidently - from comments on cause and effect of what actually took place- unexciting I.T. process go wrong on her watch, frankly eludes me.

What private business, as precursor to the nice deflection of "next question", are you referring to? Was the I.T. process here run by a federal contractor? - but that would hardly place oversight out of bounds.

As for the Administrator role ..... it's great when a critic can take unmeasured liberties with what a public official actually said. Personally I think Mr. Nolen would serve in the fully authorized role just fine, given his record, but the Chairman didn't say otherwise. The jab he gave the WH was about the lack of a successful nominee for Administrator - and if your view is that not having a fully authorized head of such a federal agency in office has no impact on leadership of that agency - which was the point of that part of the Chairman's statement - I guess it's down to agreeing to disagree.

I lack knowledge sufficient to question whether the Chairman has or has not tinkered improperly with GA matters, so I'll pass on that. But to dig at the Chairman for not doing the serious business of legislating because he issued that statement, is surprisingly cynical even for this forum. Of course there will be hearings and of course observers aplenty will say it's all notoriety and staff careerists and so on. Yet hearings are part of the legislative process. The Congress just opened this session, and in the wake of the Southwest meltdown (so-called), this statement was pretty nominal. There also are consumer protection measures in play, as everyone is aware, and so that fact also makes a statement now - even as we await progress on a reauthorization bill if that is going to move forward - quite nominal. Not least, let's see what there may be to object to in the oversight letter, forthcoming, according to the statement.

I'll poke fun at Congress-missions as much as anyone when I think they deserve it but in this case, the Chairman was just fulfilling the expected slot associated with the office (at Committee) he now holds.
Incidentally, in the several days of hearings or among the reams of reports and documents at House T&I about the 737 MAX, did you find anything like grandstanding on this Reprsentative's part?

[Airbus_a321]

@ uffington
„Notice to airmen“ is also still in my memory
You are 68 and I am 69.
Obviously this „Air mission“ used today is just „modern“ talking. :8 with no pragmatic sense behind.

[C2H5OH]

Obviously someone hasn't been doing a good job for a while ...
On Tuesday night, a redundant backup kicked in for the FAA's Notam system, which provides aviation personnel information about flight restrictions, the officials said, but the data was corrupted and wasn't considered reliable.
Wall street journal, can't post link, google will find it.

[Skywards747]

I still don't understand why FAA as the regulator is still allowed to operate the air traffic system. It should at least be operated as a public-private partnership such as NATS (UK) and Nav Canada. FAA is under a political appointed leadership and under such conditions, the budget allocations are usually diverted to politically correct projects instead of much needed modernizations.

[alphacentauri]

Skywards747,
NavCanada, UKNATS and Airservices may be public/private, but make no mistake, these organisations are also under a political appointed leadership and have the same budget allocation problems. I cant speak for Canada and the UK but in Australia its written in to federal legislation that Airservices is to return a profit to Gov't....where do you think that puts the focus at budget time?

[MechEngr]

I still don't understand why FAA as the regulator is still allowed to operate the air traffic system. It should at least be operated as a public-private partnership such as NATS (UK) and Nav Canada. FAA is under a political appointed leadership and under such conditions, the budget allocations are usually diverted to politically correct projects instead of much needed modernizations.

Bad news for Canada if the following report is true:
NAV Canada, a nonprofit corporation that serves as the FAA’s Canadian counterpart, said today that it had also experienced its own brief NOTAM system outage. Brian Boudreau, a spokesperson for the company, says it was investigating the “root cause of the failure” but that it did not believe the issue was related to the FAA’s earlier trouble. https://www.wired.com/story/faa-notam-outage/

Often such partnerships are great and often they are terrible. It gives a chance for both sides to swap blame while the system burns to the ground.

Canadian aviation officials said an alert system that provides airlines with important safety information went down less than two hours after a similar system in the U.S. was restored on Wednesday.The system outage lasted for nearly three hours. NAV Canada's Notam entry system went down at about 10:20 a.m. ET and was restored at roughly 1:15 pm, said Vanessa Adams, spokeswoman for the Ottawa-based not-for-profit organization.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/faa-flights-united-planes/card/canadian-airports-see-some-delays-as-u-s-air-traffic-resumes-ZS4DqoettE6DcOampCBX

This has opened a can of worms on the NOTAM concept, specifically the difficulty in interpreting them and the expressed belief this is an FAA side problem. I don't see why a company cannot create a parser for NOTAMs to suss out just the applicable items for a flight - except, of course, any misinterpretation would leave that party liable if there was a bad outcome.

Lots of people with grudges and a bunch of opportunists are going to all pile on. I'm sure it will come out so much better with the newly emboldened data management experts hopping into action.

[Advance]

Australia has a regulator and an ATS service provider.
At the organisational level it seems a good idea, BUT
You end up with a SERVICE organisation run by people who know nothing whatever about flying aircraft or the economics of any part of the aviation industry.
The old public "service" Peter principle applies; people are promoted until they reach their level of incompetence.
We need pilots and statisticians working on ATC standards at ICAO, not those whose job it is to apply them.
So Skywards747, I appreciate your view but as a Pilot, an ATC and an ex regulator, may I suggest the need is to define the managerial skill set needed in each role then set out an organisational structure to optimise your chances of achieving the goal?
What we have here is not optimal at all.
A pilot does not do the structural analysis on his aircraft; a cleaner does not get to formulate the cleaning chemicals, and an ATC should not be deciding what ATS services to provide, to what standard, when and where.

[Lonewolf_50]

So will this change to "Airmissionaries"? That was the position taken, yes. :E
@ uffington
„Notice to airmen“ is also still in my memory
You are 68 and I am 69.
Obviously this „Air mission“ used today is just „modern“ talking. :8 with no pragmatic sense behind. Notice to Airmen was correct terminology, and thus it was replaced by something useless because it had to be. That's entropy in action. Waitress became server, stewardess became flight attendant, NOTAM had to change. So Skywards747, I appreciate your view but as a Pilot, an ATC and an ex regulator, may I suggest the need is to define the managerial skill set needed in each role then set out an organisational structure to optimise your chances of achieving the goal?
What we have here is not optimal at all. Give this man a cigar. :D
"An engineer “replaced one file with another,” the official said, not realizing the mistake was being made. As the systems began showing problems and ultimately failed, FAA staff feverishly tried to figure out what had gone wrong. The engineer who made the error did not realize what had happened."
As to what happened, the single point of failure was found. One can idiot proof a system, but the world will, without fail, always provide a more accomplished idiot.

[ScepticalOptomist]

“Air Missions” - what rubbish. What’s next - human to become “humissions”?? FFS.

Time to grow up methinks and stop being outraged at everything that moves..

[421dog]

One must understand that “Aviator” as referenced extensively above, is a gendered term, and does disservice to aviatrices everywhere.

[WillowRun 6-3]

What would have been sensible, as long as language and meaning have become pliable almost in an Orwellian way, is to declare NOTAM - and its plural form, NOTAMs - words in and of themselves. They no longer would have been abbreviated forms for other words, but instead would have meaning as they stand without being broken down. If asked what they refer to, the answer would be along the lines of, "notices of changed information that pilots, you know, people who operate flying machines, need to know".
Calling people who operate flying machines "air missions" ..... senseless, or devoid of sensibility at least.

[safetypee]

"Calling people who operate flying machines "air missions" ..... senseless, or devoid of sensibility at least."

Which might indicate the underlying culture in regulation; more interested in words than the substance of safety.

[DaveReidUK]

One must understand that “Aviator” as referenced extensively above, is a gendered term, and does disservice to aviatrices everywhere.

Tell that to your favourite actress. :O

[421dog]

In much of the civilized world, failure to acknowledge gender appropriately is frowned upon. We here, in the US, for some reason, see it as a virtue…

(Also, who wouldn’t want to call herself an “Aviatrix” if it was appropriate to do so. Beats the heck out of “pilot”…)

[DirtyProp]

"computer outage" - don't they have redundant systems?
Redundant systems are for IFR only. :}


I'll see myself out....

[Atlasisrubbish]

It does beg the question how this anomaly occurred. Same day as a major cyber attack on the UK post system...

[FakePilot]

Notams seemed pretty pointless to me anyway. 15 pages of Blah Blah Blah Blah and hidden near the bottom is "RW 9L CLSED BP". I think BP means bottomless pit.

[MechEngr]

It does beg the question how this anomaly occurred. Same day as a major cyber attack on the UK post system...
There are major cyberattacks every day. The ones you hear about are the ones that happened to work.

[Dunhovrin]

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1761x1752/1a424d11_8fc0_4faa_8339_b64c8324428e_7804dcc1e25326f72351a1d 88af402465ff83ad4.jpeg

[cavuman1]

Is that a photo of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg?

- Ed :p

[WillowRun 6-3]

Let cynicism run as wild and rampant as you like . . . . but this letter from both the GOP and Dem most-senior Representatives on House Transportation & Infrastructure looks like the heat is going to stay on for the Secretary.

The detailed questions are, taken together, a broadly encompassing enquiry. Someone who had conducted a lot of written discovery under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, I'd guess, had a big role in framing and completing this set of what amounts to interrogatories (with requests to produce certain documents embedded). Your friendly forum SLF/attorney says, Bravo!!-- nicely, very nicely done....and neatness counts.
Oh, and Congress wants answers not later than 25 January - including an in-person briefing.

Note: some 120 other Members of Congress, from both parties, signed the letter.,

Link:
2023-01-13_-_letter_to_dot_on_notam_system_outage_final.pdf

[MechEngr]

Took a bit to find it: https://transportation.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2023-01-13_-_letter_to_dot_on_notam_system_outage_final.pdf

Perhaps he should focus his outrage at CISA or the fact that there isn't a national department for providing computing services to ensure best practices.

Why does he indict FAA for proactively asking for new hardware and conflate that with a user issue? Ironic as he loves to fly antique aircraft.

Until then Sam needs to take a moment and fix his own Committee website with the names of the members. You'd think he could manage to handle a list.

[WillowRun 6-3]

I'll just say, MechEngr, for now anyway, that if an observer focuses response to the oversight letter on the Chairman, Rep. Graves (I'm not on a first-name basis with Cabinet Secretaries or Members of Congress), without considering, (i) the letter bears the signature of the Ranking Member; (ii) 120 other Members inked it also; (iii) this letter was completed and in a manner which gained this quite evident bipartisan support and endorsement very quickly - despite the rancor and sideshow nonsense so popular in some precincts of the Congress - then it does seem that such an observer has some sort of bias unfavorably inclined toward the Chairman.

Is it your position, Mech (I guess I can start on this forum, acquiring first-name propers with people so knowledgeable about the ways and workings on Capitol Hill) that no oversight is called for? Unless your answer is an unequivocal "yes" - meaning you think nothing should emanate from the Committee in the nature of oversight - and since you obviously do not approve of the letter just issued, what would the oversight letter you would write, or approve and sign, say? I know I'm pressing attorney form here, so if you propose some different content as proper oversight, you can skip - omit - the footnotes in very neat Bluebook form.

[Lonewolf_50]

I'll just say, MechEngr, for now anyway, that if an observer focuses response to the oversight letter on the Chairman, Rep. Graves (I'm not on a first-name basis with Cabinet Secretaries or Members of Congress), without considering, (i) the letter bears the signature of the Ranking Member; (ii) 120 other Members inked it also; (iii) this letter was completed and in a manner which gained this quite evident bipartisan support and endorsement very quickly - despite the rancor and sideshow nonsense so popular in some precincts of the Congress - then it does seem that such an observer has some sort of bias unfavorably inclined toward the Chairman.

Is it your position, Mech (I guess I can start on this forum, acquiring first-name propers with people so knowledgeable about the ways and workings on Capitol Hill) that no oversight is called for? Unless your answer is an unequivocal "yes" - meaning you think nothing should emanate from the Committee in the nature of oversight - and since you obviously do not approve of the letter just issued, what would the oversight letter you would write, or approve and sign, say? I know I'm pressing attorney form here, so if you propose some different content as proper oversight, you can skip - omit - the footnotes in very neat Bluebook form. It has become too common these days to let party affiliation or preference color an assessment, even when a bipartisan effort is made in good faith by members of Congress (in those rare cases that they do drop their cordons and agree on a position) where they wish to hold the Executive Branch to account. The attitude of "one drop of {party one dislikes} contaminates the whole gallon" is far too common.
Your post is well presented, and neutral in tone. Thanks for providing that kind of input.
How a bipartisan committee can lead an effort to idiot proof whatever it is that the FAA is doing remains to be seen ... given the number of idiots on Capitol Hill in the first place. :} :E :cool: Less tongue in cheek: I applaud their efforts, in a bipartisan manner, to basically tell the Executive Branch "You can do better!"

[421dog]

Will they issue a NOTAM that the NOTAM system is not working?
no lie, this has been in all of my briefings on flightaware as the first NOTAM for the last 48 hrs:

FAA NOTAMS ARE UPDATING INTERMITTENTLY DUE TO FAA SYSTEM OUTAGE. THIS MESSAGE WILL BE AMENDED WHEN MORE INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE AND REMOVED WHEN FAA UPDATES REMAIN STABLE.

[Thirsty]

Seeing you all got so distracted with the thread drift globally about the naming gender issue, can I just to chime in very late and politely ask if NOTAM actually refers to Notice to Air Males?

Gotta get my PC wokeness out of my system somehow. ;)

[remi]

I'm not much for conspiracy theories but whatever root cause the simultaneous "unrelated" Canadian outage has, I'll be interested to hear. I mean, that's a heck of a coincidence.

A corrupted database is apparently to blame. Though this raises questions as to
1. How the database became corrupted
2.What mechanisms are in pace to detect corruption
3.Whether any shadow copy is in place (or should be) for failover in such a circumstance

Wellllp, whenever one person making a mistake in a (software) deployment can cause a system to fail, it will fail sooner or later.

Decades of software engineering experience informing my opinion here, including multiple incidents creating regional/national/worldwide outages evolving right in front of me.

"Two person rule" is helpful in reducing the risk in deployments to production, but there need to be more "Swiss cheese" measures in place to reduce the likelihood that a single mistake will make it all the way to production.

[MechEngr]

Per FoxNews: "FAA acting administrator Billy Nolen plans to hold a virtual briefing Friday for lawmakers and staff who have sought details of what went wrong."

It also seems that it was a contractor performing an upgrade of some type - the sort of activity that was requested of the FAA with that "private industry" tie in so often sought.

They were, ironically, intending to synchronize with the back-up database.

[WillowRun 6-3]

MechEngr, are you conflating two separate things?

Probably like many agencies throughout the federal complex, FAA utilizes private contractors for functions with regard to which it would be a significant budgetary (and in many instances, management) burden to staff the function within the agency's own personnel. And, given the very-legacy legacy nature of the Notam system, it would make sense that FAA would not choose to have limited budget resources dedicated to staffing the software end of an old system - as opposed to hiring the expertise from a federal contractor.

But having specific functions staffed and performed by contractor personnel, under contract with the agency, is quite a different structure or arrangement than "privatizing" the entire ATC - NAS-management set of functions into a new, separate entity (which is a fair if also incomplete description of how Canada, among others, changed its structure).

Reasonable people can differ about whether proposals for carving out ATC and NAS-management and shifting these to a non-profit or otherwise non-governmental structure are wise, stupid, indeterminant, wonky, or irrelevant. But if the subject instead is not having what probably are tens of thousands federal contractor personnel doing software work across the entire interagency landscape continue in that role, whoa, that's a long and difficult carry. At altitude. With an over-limits pack weighing you down. On no rest. And your canteen just went down a crevice.

[tdracer]

There is a very lucrative 'niche' industry that's grown up around supporting the aging computer infrastructure. Most companies can't keep dedicated people who know and understand the older programing systems/languages (Fortran anyone?), and the big chip manufacturers can't be bothered to maintain production of decades old component designs. OTOH, it was cost huge money to replace the hardware and software of large computer systems that date back to the 20th century. So these companies provide contract support services to maintain both the hardware and software of those older systems - and can charge handsomely for it.

[WillowRun 6-3]

As it turns out, the House passed legislation in the previous Congress (the 117th) as well as the one before that (116th) seeking to address problems in the NOTAM system; obviously the legislation went nowhere in the Senate.

On September 12 of this year, Rep. Pete Stauber (representing Minnesota's 8th Congressional District, and a member of the GOP Conference), reintroduced the legislation, the NOTAM Improvement Act of 2023. (H.R. 346; items re: prior legislation from Rep. Stauber's website). The main feature of the measure is to authorize and direct FAA to empanel a "task force" to address specific aspects of the NOTAM system.

To elaborate, FAA Adminstrator would be directed to appoint representatives, with expertise, from several aviation sectors and constituencies. These are air carriers; labor unions; general and business aviation; aviation safety (with specific knowledge re: NOTAMs); human factors; and computer system architecture and cybersecurity.

The list of tasks for the task force appears fairly broad and encompassing -

DUTIES.—The duties of the Task Force shall include—
(1) reviewing existing methods for presenting NOTAMs and flight operations information to pilots;
(2) reviewing regulations and policies relating to NOTAMs, including their content and presentation to pilots;
(3) evaluating and determining best practices to organize, prioritize, and present flight operations information in a manner that optimizes pilot review and retention of relevant information; and
(4) providing recommendations for—
(A) improving the presentation of NOTAM information in a manner that prioritizes or highlights the most important information, and optimizes pilot review and retention of relevant information;
(B) ways to ensure that NOTAMs are complete, accurate, and contain the proper information;
(C) any best practices that the FAA should consider to improve the accuracy and understandability of NOTAMs and the display of flight operations information;
(D) ways to work with air carriers, other airspace users, and aviation service providers to implement solutions that are aligned with the recommendations under this paragraph; and
(E) ensuring the stability, resiliency, and cybersecurity of the NOTAM computer system.

The legislation directs a report to Congress within one year on results of the task force's work with respect to the first three items listed above; any best practices and recommedations identified by the task force pursuant to the fourth item; and any recommendations for additional regulatory or policy actions to "improve the presentation of NOTAMs". The bill also requires an answer as to "the degree to which implementing the recommendations" with regard to best practices "will address [NTSB] Safety Recomendation A-18-024."

As probably nearly everyone reading this thread already anticipates, or already knows, the referenced NTSB Safety Recommendation is part of the set of Safety Recommendations NTSB published as of Oct. 11, 2018 (adopted on Sept. 25, 2018) in the follow-up to the "Taxiway Overflight" incident involving Air Canada 759 at San Francisco International Airport on July 7, 2017. (In an NTSB hearing on that incident, Chairman Sumwalt referred to the NOTAMs as "garbage".) The fact that Runway 2-8 Left was closed was, in fact, included in the NOTAMs given to the crew of the incident flight, although it was deep within the quantity of pages, and iirc was either not seen or not recalled by the aviators. (Not rehearsing the other salient details of the incident here....) So, it may have taken a system crash to get attention focused on the creakiness of the NOTAM system, but as it has been said before, the times, they are a-changin'.

[ATC Watcher]

.) So, it may have taken a system crash to get attention focused on the creakiness of the NOTAM system, but as it has been said before, the times, they are a-changin'.
Indeed . But ATC has always been reactive to accidents /incidents. We always have to wait things make the headlines to have things changed. We all know since at least 30 years that we have to modernise the NOTAM system and change things into plain language instead of abbrevaitions and codes made during WW2 when the first NOTAMs had to be sent by Morse code and later by teletypes. In fact it is partially our own collectve fault that we are still acceping this today as a fact of life.
The US Congress might have good initatives, but the FAA cannot do this alone, ICAO would need to be invoved , and the old lady is (very) slow..

[MechEngr]

The FAA is on schedule to adopt the ICAO classification schema by 2024. However, it turns out that the IACO has its own problems with an even larger lack of uniformity, so that's about all that is getting copied.

The most interesting part of NOTAMs is the FAA isn't solely responsible for originating the messages, which is where the lack of uniformity starts. The airport operators are in the lead and they send these out to cover their butts.

This is the likely reason the legislation, put up by at least 2 reps, died, even though that one passed the house.

I had a larger writeup but quit it because the legislators are behind the actual curve the FAA is working on.

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/notams/media/2021-09-07_ICAO_NOTAM_101_Presentation_for_Airport_Operators.pdf
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/notams/

From the latter:On the second Tuesday of each month, FAA holds a virtual meeting for interested NOTAM Stakeholders, all NOTAM consumers or originators are welcome to attend.

To add your name to the address list or for additional information contact, Jill Witter (https://www.faa.gov/contact_faa/?returnPage=M%2FWY4H9%26%2D3%29XJJ%28P%2DW%3A%5DPCYF%3ADJ%29 %2FD4%2C8MA%3E2B9%2E3GYKP%3D70%28%5FGZXP%286%40GQY%25%0A%24P %5B%5E%2F%5C%40%20%20%0A&mailto=5%3EG91O%5E%224%24%28%40ENI%24%2B%40%28EZAY%5F%3C%409 %290%0A&subject=%3D5FU2ONZ%2E28ABJ%280%2FW%2AYSD%2C32K%291%2ADP4%40% 5C%20%2A%23GHX%20%0A)

Look - there's already a task force. Stauber and Graves can sign up.

Pete Stauber has submitted a new one - https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/346/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22stauber%22%2C%22stauber%22%5D %7D&r=1&s=1 Looks like the same thing, different date.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Rep. Stauber's bill, H.R. 346, was passed by the House of Representatives on January 25 by a vote of 424 to 4 (according to a T&I Committee email).

The existing FAA vehicle for input is not the same thing as a statutorily authorized task force with designated representation from relevant sectors and a legislative mandate to report to Congress.

Also iirc the Secretary's written responses to questions presented in the recent oversight letter were due to be provided on the 25th. Likewise the Secretary's briefing for Congress. Perhaps these dates have been deferred or finessed; I think Acting FAA Admin. Nolen recently briefed some people in Congress.

[ethicalconundrum]

The FAA is on schedule to adopt the ICAO classification schema by 2024. However, it turns out that the IACO has its own problems with an even larger lack of uniformity, so that's about all that is getting copied.

The most interesting part of NOTAMs is the FAA isn't solely responsible for originating the messages, which is where the lack of uniformity starts. The airport operators are in the lead and they send these out to cover their butts.

This is the likely reason the legislation, put up by at least 2 reps, died, even though that one passed the house.

I had a larger writeup but quit it because the legislators are behind the actual curve the FAA is working on.

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/notams/media/2021-09-07_ICAO_NOTAM_101_Presentation_for_Airport_Operators.pdf
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/notams/

From the latter:

Look - there's already a task force. Stauber and Graves can sign up.

Pete Stauber has submitted a new one - https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/346/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22stauber%22%2C%22stauber%22%5D %7D&r=1&s=1 Looks like the same thing, different date.

As an airport manager, I would like to spread some knowledge on how the NOTAM system works(or actually fails to work) from the other side(submitter). Every 15-26 months, a contract inspector comes to my airport, and inspects it for all operational equipment, and anything related to safe operation on the airport, even if we aren't responsible for it. Example, There are two power poles about 400' from the threshold of one runway, and 8 deg off center. Are they a hazard to navigation? Not to me, I know where they are and I know not to make a low and off-center approach. The poles are pretty easily visible, as they have a yellow band at the top. However, each inspection the power poles are noted on my inspection with height, location, and distance from the threshold.

Now, since the inspector makes a report, and notes these poles they have become a 'hazard'. So, I have two choices. I can NOTAM the poles, or I can remark them in the operation notes of the airport master record. In fact, I'm supposed to do both. I didn't have a choice as the inspector will submit the inspection to the FAA, and then it's cast in stone, and I can't do anything about it from a reporting standpoint. I've contacted the utility, and they tell me they will move them, but unless I pay for it, they will do it on their schedule, and I have to wait. These poles are not on my airfield, there's nothing I can do about them myself.

I don't want to NOTAM them as I don't think they are a factor for anyone with more than 8 working brain cells that would make an off-center, very low(65 feet) approach. But - it could happen so not reporting them to the NOTAM people leaves me in the "well, why didn't you report the poles" in case some jackass hits them. I mean, seriously, the poles are only 4 feet from the edge of the road, and yet no driver would hold the city or county or property owner liable if they smashed into them with a car, so WTF about a plane hitting one and blaming me? So, every 6 months, I write an email renewing my NOTAM for the poles. I don't want to do it, and I don't have to do it, but the FAA is going to come along and give me **** about it, unless I have the removed or leave them and publish the NOTAM.

I want to take a chain saw over and do the deed, but there's another liability for me if I do the right thing. Trust me, we have enough paperwork to do without make-work developed by the FAA and their contractors.

[MechEngr]

Keep in mind that one driver for NOTAM reform was the near accident of landing on an occupied taxiway in spite of a NOTAM indicating one of the parallel runways was closed, therefore not lighted, and the pilots lined up where they should not have been because the taxiway had lights along it. The crew was faulted for not reading all the NOTAMs, one of which mentioned the closed runway, with the NTSB recommendation to somehow fix that.

The main obstacle is that operators are inconsistent in their notation, making parsing by software of the NOTAMs unreliable for every entry, and missing even one can be a problem. In many industries some service would start up offering that translation and fixing errors as they are noted, but the liability for an error could be in the billions of dollars, so where's the upside? If it was easy it would have happened long ago. The legislation is the sort that assumes it is easy but, if so, why the lack of showing their homework towards a solution? I would guess they also want to avoid liability if it goes wrong. Better to pass a law forcing others to take that responsibility.

The FAA adoption of the ICAO schema is to offset some of this by adding a classification to each entry and to create a class of permanent NOTAMS, such as for the poles, but also for birds, and other uncontrolled hazards. This allows sorting into "What's New" and "What's a direct concern," but it doesn't relieve the operators of having to put down poles and birds - whether they are essentially extorted to do so or just don't want to be sued for failing to mention a hazard that may not appear on navigation charts.

My preference is a system similar to the ADSB system with a mandate of ADSB-In for all manned aircraft. Then hazards could be given their own identifiers and their coordinates broadcast from the airports. However the FAA hasn't even wanted to mandate ADSB-Out for purposes of tracking and avoidance for all manned aircraft. Add in some width and length dimensions and obstacles like powerlines can be included.

[WillowRun 6-3]

MechEngr, I hope you'll consider serving on the H.R. 346 task force . . . . if it passes the Senate, that is.

(Odd coincidence, the number of the House Resolution matches the number of fatalities in the two 737 MAX crashes - which also is the number of fatalities in the 1974 Turkish Airlines 981 DC-10 crash outside Paris.)

[ethicalconundrum]

Mech - I can see value for a tech solution to part of the NOTAM system, but not sure how that would play in the changing environment. Example; Some nut does a gear up at my field. First thing I do is call the 888 number for NOTAM and close my runway. Right now, within 10 min or so, the entire aviating world knows that my airport is closed to all traffic. A plane with ADSB-in does not use the NOTAM system and relies on real time ADSB-in info for NOTAMs. Since the ADSB plane did not check NOTAMs on pre-flight they have no idea my runway is fouled. How does the NOTAM report get involved with the ADSB real time report? I can't see a mandate for something like this unless there is a complete overhaul and ADSB shows real time up to date info to the pilot. My experience so far is the FAA can't even do ADSB-out very well yet. How many years ago were we promised full in and out ADSB service? And, where are we today?

Second, suppose I fly a no radio bugsmasher. How am I going to equip with ADSB-in? Or, don't non-radio planes get to fly anymore? Just ground thousands of planes that can't generate electricity? My Luscombe 8E is a hand prop all metal no electric. Right now, I can fly anywhere outside class A and B, and yes still inside the mode-C veil. Take away the AW cert for all these planes? hmmmm

[MechEngr]

The ADSB system could be used to monitor all traffic anywhere in the world - that's how sites like Flight 24 work. They aren't used now for NOTAM level activity because they are prohibited from being used that way. It's also sufficiently real time (I think typical updates are less than 60 seconds apart) to track ground vehicles at large airports.

Having checked the NOTAM for your airport prior to departure if you have a wheel's up on the runway after they depart, how does the pilot know about it?

Either ground the antique or put in an electrical system. The GA system kills more people every year than the MAX did, and too large a number of them are from mid-air collisions, including professional and expert operations. ADSB is easy to adapt to track local traffic - costs about $100 in hardware to use a software defined radio and a single-board computer to discover the traffic and a small LCD panel to show proximity and path. No doubt "certified'" systems will cost more because they can. GA pilots also fly into power lines, as recently happened at Gaithersburg. An ADSB broadcast having that as an obstacle would very likely have avoided that problem.

It is a problem that the FAA has been dragging on ADSB - but I think it better to focus on an integrated solution to the majority of problems than spend a similar amount of effort on what is essentially a dead end technology. Improving NOTAM is trying to keep the printing presses running for delivering the newspaper so that readers can check how the market is doing.

What is funny (freaking hilarious) is that the FAA has mandated that all model airplanes and remote control drones transmit an equivalent of ADSB of not only the location of the item, but also the location of the operator. Somehow a model airplane is more regulated for that aspect than manned aircraft are. This in spite of 0 fatalities from hobbyists in at least the last 50 years vs an average of 1 per day in the US for manned GA. However, there is a danger - as demonstrated when a cop set his drone directly into the final approach to an airport, a cop meeting all the FAA operator requirements, including an observer, suggesting that law enforcement not be allowed to operate drones. Best part - that cop was stationed at the airport. No NOTAM for that operation, but had the drone had ADSB-Out and the small plane ADSB-In the collision would likely been avoided. Had the plane had ADSB-Out the cop could have been alerted to the plane coming in or the software in the drone designed to avoid the collision.

[WideScreen]

Indeed . But ATC has always been reactive to accidents /incidents. We always have to wait things make the headlines to have things changed. We all know since at least 30 years that we have to modernise the NOTAM system and change things into plain language instead of abbrevaitions and codes made during WW2 when the first NOTAMs had to be sent by Morse code and later by teletypes. In fact it is partially our own collectve fault that we are still acceping this today as a fact of life.
The US Congress might have good initatives, but the FAA cannot do this alone, ICAO would need to be invoved , and the old lady is (very) slow..
Actually, I am not against the abbreviations at all, on the contrary. It makes it much easier to "fast-read", than when ordinary (semi- / own-invention-) English is being used.

What we want to get rid of, are all those CYA NOTAMs. So, some system in place to have a height (and maybe also altitude) relevance, as well as selection (for example) based on the inverted wedding cakes & airspaces, would solve large parts of the current critics.

Not to say, I sincerely hope, the NOTAM system is not "modernized" to reflect a digital world. A digital world, that nicely works, when reliable connections are available, but fails miserable, once that assumption goes below 99%.

[WideScreen]

As an airport manager, I would like to spread some knowledge on how the NOTAM system works(or actually fails to work) from the other side(submitter). Every 15-26 months, a contract inspector comes to my airport, and inspects it for all operational equipment, and anything related to safe operation on the airport, even if we aren't responsible for it. Example, There are two power poles about 400' from the threshold of one runway, and 8 deg off center. Are they a hazard to navigation? Not to me, I know where they are and I know not to make a low and off-center approach. The poles are pretty easily visible, as they have a yellow band at the top. However, each inspection the power poles are noted on my inspection with height, location, and distance from the threshold.

Now, since the inspector makes a report, and notes these poles they have become a 'hazard'. So, I have two choices. I can NOTAM the poles, or I can remark them in the operation notes of the airport master record. In fact, I'm supposed to do both. I didn't have a choice as the inspector will submit the inspection to the FAA, and then it's cast in stone, and I can't do anything about it from a reporting standpoint. I've contacted the utility, and they tell me they will move them, but unless I pay for it, they will do it on their schedule, and I have to wait. These poles are not on my airfield, there's nothing I can do about them myself.

I don't want to NOTAM them as I don't think they are a factor for anyone with more than 8 working brain cells that would make an off-center, very low(65 feet) approach. But - it could happen so not reporting them to the NOTAM people leaves me in the "well, why didn't you report the poles" in case some jackass hits them. I mean, seriously, the poles are only 4 feet from the edge of the road, and yet no driver would hold the city or county or property owner liable if they smashed into them with a car, so WTF about a plane hitting one and blaming me? So, every 6 months, I write an email renewing my NOTAM for the poles. I don't want to do it, and I don't have to do it, but the FAA is going to come along and give me **** about it, unless I have the removed or leave them and publish the NOTAM.

I want to take a chain saw over and do the deed, but there's another liability for me if I do the right thing. Trust me, we have enough paperwork to do without make-work developed by the FAA and their contractors.
What you describe is a real reality.

The issue with this is, that with your road example, there are navigation clues (the tarmac itself, potential white stripes, etc), to give drivers the real-time notification "you should not go there" (something which is lost, with heavy fog and we see the results of that). These restriction clues are missing, once you go 3D (or better 4D, since obstacles can move).

The main problem is, the NOTAM system should have some kind of "extra info" option, so it becomes possible to filter out everything that is not supposed to be on your navigation path. Ok, ok, I know, this is an oversimplification ..... Though, why get reported all those windmills up to 500ft, when the only reason for you to get there would be, when things are already out of control and you already lost the nav plot / opportunity to avoid the windmills anyway ?

Granted, there are / can be situations, when these windmills are relevant to be NOTAM'd. For example, when flying low-level inspections with a chopper. Then, you definitely want to know what obstacles could be there. The same applies, for your just "off-center" poles, when not flying regular navigation patterns.

[WideScreen]

The ADSB system could be used to monitor all traffic anywhere in the world - that's how sites like Flight 24 work. They aren't used now for NOTAM level activity because they are prohibited from being used that way. It's also sufficiently real time (I think typical updates are less than 60 seconds apart) to track ground vehicles at large airports.
Unfortunately, the FR24 are nice for viewing/reviewing, though insufficiently accurate/reliable to run a day2day flight operation on.


Having checked the NOTAM for your airport prior to departure if you have a wheel's up on the runway after they depart, how does the pilot know about it?
NOTAMs get posted long before you depart (including a timing window these are valid, etc). Those issues / emergency NOTAMS popping up during the flight, you get an ACARS message from the company, or just on approach to the arrival airport, on the ATIS or from the ATC itself.

Either ground the antique or put in an electrical system. The GA system kills more people every year than the MAX did, and too large a number of them are from mid-air collisions, including professional and expert operations. ADSB is easy to adapt to track local traffic - costs about $100 in hardware to use a software defined radio and a single-board computer to discover the traffic and a small LCD panel to show proximity and path. No doubt "certified'" systems will cost more because they can. GA pilots also fly into power lines, as recently happened at Gaithersburg. An ADSB broadcast having that as an obstacle would very likely have avoided that problem.
When Mode-S was introduced, the airfield ATC's NOTAM'd the Mode-S to be turned off, due to system overloading (solved by now).

The moment you start ADSB-ing obstacles, it would result in a cacophony of ADSB transmitters, cluttering the screens and whatever.

It is a problem that the FAA has been dragging on ADSB - but I think it better to focus on an integrated solution to the majority of problems than spend a similar amount of effort on what is essentially a dead end technology. Improving NOTAM is trying to keep the printing presses running for delivering the newspaper so that readers can check how the market is doing.
Printed stuff isn't that bad, once it no longer does have a real-time characteristic. I still read a lot of paper magazines, reads much easier than a bulky screen (not to speak about the useless small phone screens to do something serious). Not so say, when taking a bath, the paper magazine dropping into the water is a waste of USD 5, iso USD 200+ for a phone/tablet. Not so say, the vapor damaging the phone/tablet internals. (Water tight is not really water tight against water vapor ......).

What is funny (freaking hilarious) is that the FAA has mandated that all model airplanes and remote control drones transmit an equivalent of ADSB of not only the location of the item, but also the location of the operator. Somehow a model airplane is more regulated for that aspect than manned aircraft are. This in spite of 0 fatalities from hobbyists in at least the last 50 years vs an average of 1 per day in the US for manned GA. However, there is a danger - as demonstrated when a cop set his drone directly into the final approach to an airport, a cop meeting all the FAA operator requirements, including an observer, suggesting that law enforcement not be allowed to operate drones. Best part - that cop was stationed at the airport. No NOTAM for that operation, but had the drone had ADSB-Out and the small plane ADSB-In the collision would likely been avoided. Had the plane had ADSB-Out the cop could have been alerted to the plane coming in or the software in the drone designed to avoid the collision.
The issue with model airplanes / drones is, the operator is not on board, with the consequence of a significant difference in personal importance "where the flying object goes", whereas the flying object can severely impact/damage third parties. Not so speak about potential bad-intentions, significantly more difficult to realize undetected with a GA airplane.

[MechEngr]

WS - as long as you ignore what I write there is not much point in responding.

[DaveReidUK]

I'm waiting in hope that somebody might explain what on earth ADS-B has to do with NOTAMs.

[ethicalconundrum]

What you describe is a real reality.

The issue with this is, that with your road example, there are navigation clues (the tarmac itself, potential white stripes, etc), to give drivers the real-time notification "you should not go there" (something which is lost, with heavy fog and we see the results of that). These restriction clues are missing, once you go 3D (or better 4D, since obstacles can move).

The main problem is, the NOTAM system should have some kind of "extra info" option, so it becomes possible to filter out everything that is not supposed to be on your navigation path. Ok, ok, I know, this is an oversimplification ..... Though, why get reported all those windmills up to 500ft, when the only reason for you to get there would be, when things are already out of control and you already lost the nav plot / opportunity to avoid the windmills anyway ?

Granted, there are / can be situations, when these windmills are relevant to be NOTAM'd. For example, when flying low-level inspections with a chopper. Then, you definitely want to know what obstacles could be there. The same applies, for your just "off-center" poles, when not flying regular navigation patterns.

Nope. The power poles adjacent to the road have no line of sight reflectors, are on pavement(tarmacadam), no white line, no curb. Just the existential fact that they exist in time and space and the driver is responsible for 'see and avoid'.

Fully agree that the NOTAM system needs filtering, but I'm at a loss on how to proceed. I am strongly against more technical mandates. While GA pilots continue to find ways to do themselves and pax in using a variety of simple and complex means, the paying 121 and 135 traffic have pretty much eliminated any serious risk to life or limb. Of course, there are exceptions and once in a while a charter will go sideways, but the safety systems in place for the paying public seem to be doing a remarkable job of reducing risk. Part of this(I will opine) a small part is also the NOTAM system which will advise a pilot on something that really matters.

Evidence used was the NOTAM at SFO of a runway OTS. However, even with the NOTAM info published, provided, and noted by one crew, they still decided to line up wrong and missed a string of planes on the taxiway. And - this is WITH the NOTAM system operating nominally. NOTAMs play some role in aviation safety, but as noted, from the FAA(not the airport mgrs) THEY have made it into a CYA dumping ground. If the inspector will stop reporting on my power poles, I will stop adding them to the NOTAM system. In fact, those poles have been there for maybe 20 years. If I could go back in time to 2003 time frame, I would bet that they were not any consideration for operation at my airport.

As for anyone navigating over there near the power poles, it would be already breaking a regulation flying at 65 feet altitude as there are homes and schools, and a golf course nearby. It would not be an area where anyone landing or taking off could possible be a factor, unless on takeoff the plane suffered some kind of loss of power. In that case, I say we should NOTAM the entire surface of the planet and all protrusions as a potential obstruction. Where does it end? The original NOTAM system was well conceived, but like most fed programs implementation has gone into a dark, messy place.

[MechEngr]

I'm waiting in hope that somebody might explain what on earth ADS-B has to do with NOTAMs.

Not ADS-B of itself, but how the system might be upgraded and expanded, since ADS-B is already a system to tell users of the airspace that there are other occupants of the airspace - that is, obstacles. If only one plane was ever in the air there would be little need for ADS-B.

ADS-B is also used for airport ground vehicles - same reason - to identify the location of obstacles.

NOTAMs appear to fill the function of notifying pilots there are obstacles to safe operation - such as closed runways, construction towers along the approach and departure path, and unusual conditions that may not be physical obstacles such as an ILS system that is inoperative.

If they are both providing information about the status of things, it makes sense to have only one source of information about status and an updated version of ADS-B, certainly with a far greater bandwidth could, in conjunction with an internet connection to the airports broadcasting this status information, handle everything that NOTAMs currently try to provide, but with the option during standardization of building automatic recognition systems for aircraft to better inform pilots.

Think of it as ADS-B Mark 2. Rid the system of the NOTAMs which no one seems to like, is getting modified right now into a different format few will like any better, and move that status information into a format that is designed to be software readable while expanding the ADS-B application to include items like drones and ultralight aircraft, which are both currently prohibited from involvement in ADS-B, as well as to notable obstacles.

[ATC Watcher]

..... an updated version of ADS-B, certainly with a far greater bandwidth could, in conjunction with an internet connection to the airports broadcasting this status information, handle everything that NOTAMs currently try to provide, but with the option during standardization of building automatic recognition systems for aircraft to better inform pilots.
....Think of it as ADS-B Mark 2.
Excellend idea on paper. But not for certified aviation .First ADS-B was designed for surveillance , and because it works , evetybody wants to add things to it but it does not have the bandwidth / capacity to start with and then no way to conect any critical safety on board system with Internet . Secured systems cannot be open to cyber inteference . The idea that all this can be easily solved is nonsense. We have not yet been able to design and implement a proper data link for all the wondrful next tools we are promised like 4D user prefered trajectories, or real time weather, etc. and are working on this since 1990 . :rolleyes:. NOTAMs now are mostly if not essentially filled with adminnistative "cover-your-back" stuff more than real safety issues that really need to be changed.
Lots of solutions exists , and some will be implemented I am sure. but it needs cooperation between States to get a a global system / implementation and this takes time .Lots of time The last thing you want is each State making its own NOTAM system with its own codes and priorities.

@ WideScreen : Actually, I am not against the abbreviations at all, on the contrary. It makes it much easier to "fast-read", than when ordinary (semi- / own-invention-) English is being used.
Sure , you are right, ,but my point was to simplify even further , take as an exmaple the codes used for when the NOTAM takes effect and when it ends : do not tell me that the current system of :
B) 2301261800
C) 2301312359
would not be better understood if it was : FROM 26 JAN 23 1800 TILL 31 JAN 23 2359 ?
The current system uses 22 characters to do it , the plain language one would use 29 . Yes important when this was sent in Morse , but in 21st century ? Plus the curent system is based on the US date format , which 3/4 of the rest of the world have to slowly decode it in their head first.
Anyway just an example among many to prove my point .