As our country slips further into third-world territory with skyrocketing inflation, daily shortages and supply chain failures, and even an inability to guarantee essential medication for children, it seems we are also now unable to ensure that flights will be able to fly without shutdown after shutdown.
On the heels of a week of chaos from Southwest Airlines, last night, the entire air travel system went into turmoil, forcing the FAA to temporarily ground flights after fears the system may have been hacked spread throughout the industry.
According to officals, an antiquated computer system that has been in use since 1947, called the Notice to Air Missions, or NOTAM, broke down late Tuesday, leading to more than 1,100 flight cancelations and 7,700 delayed flights by midday Wednesday. Before a flight takes off, pilots are required to consult the NOTAMS system. NOTAM “broke down” at 8:28 p.m. EST on Jan. 10, 2023, preventing important updates and notices from being distributed to pilots.
The White House initially said that there was no evidence of a cyberattack behind the outage, but has since ordered the Department of Transportation to investigate the possiblity of an attack taking the system down.
The President has been briefed by the Secretary of Transportation this morning on the FAA system outage. 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.
— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) January 11, 2023
Adding more fuel to the hacking speculation, just hours after the U.S. systems went down, Nav Canada, the not-for-profit corporation that operates Canada’s civil air navigation system, reported the Canadian real-time safety alerts NOTAM system for pilots, was hit with an outage.
— NAV CANADA (@navcanada) January 11, 2023
The chaos is expected to grow as backups compound.
“We are going to see the ripple effects from that, this morning’s delays through the system during the day,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in an interview on CNN. “Now we have to understand how this could have happened in the first place. Why the usual redundancies that would stop it from being that disruptive did not stop it from being disruptive this time.”
The new normal?
One look at the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administrations budget will show you why this happened, WOKE DEMOCRAT BULLSHIT! Below is one of the major budget items for the DOT and FAA’s 2023 budget: “Racial equity,” “inclusion,” “income inequality,” “environmental justice, and “climate change.” Because why update computer systems that have been around since 1947 and ensure passenger safety when you can instead focus on calling everyone a racist!
The US DOT was one of 90 federal agencies under President Biden to release a “Equity Action Plan,” which outlines the moves the department will undertake to make its core programs more equitable to minorities over the next five years. The Equity Action Plan highlights work that the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) will undertake across four focus areas – wealth creation, power of community, interventions, and expanding access – to expand access and opportunity to all communities while focusing on underserved, overburdened, and disadvantaged communities.
“From the construction of the transcontinental railroad to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, transportation has always been inseparable from America’s struggle for racial and economic justice. At its best, transportation can be a powerful engine of opportunity, connecting people to jobs, education, and resources—whether they live in a big city, a rural community, or anywhere in between. Ensuring equity and accessibility for every member of the traveling public is one of the Department of Transportation’s highest priorities.” – Secretary Pete Buttigieg
Here is the DOT plan to push racial justice and equality, instead of fixing our broken systems!