A computer system failure at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has impacted flights in the US nationwide, including a possible grounding of all airlines on Wednesday. 

“THE FAA is experiencing an outage that is impacting the update of NOTAMS. All flights are unable to be released at this time,” the FAA said in a statement announcing the problem.

Also Read | What is Notice To Air Mission System or NOTAM?

“The FAA is working to restore its Notice to Air Missions System. We are performing final validation checks and repopulating the system now,” said the FAA in an update issued shortly after their initial announcement. “Operations across the National Airspace System are affected. We will provide frequent updates as we make progress.”

The system known as NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) is tasked with alerting pilots and other flight personnel about hazards and tracking any potential changes to airport facility services and relevant procedures, which stopped processing updated information, the regulator’s website showed on Wednesday.

Also Read | FAA orders airlines to halt all US domestic flight departures till 9 am ET after massive system outage

Said information can range up to 200 pages for long-haul international flights. It may include items such as runway closures, low-altitude construction obstacles, or general bird hazard warnings.

An immediate estimate for when it would be back was not available, the website showed. NOTAMs issued before the outage was still viewable.

Also Read | ‘No evidence of cyberattack’ in FAA system outage, says White House

As of Wednesday 5.31 am ET, over 400 flights were delayed within, into, or out of the country, flight tracking website FlightAware showed. According to NBC News, it was not immediately clear if the outage was a factor. “Technicians are currently working to restore the system,” the website showed.