'Damaged database file' may have caused US flight system outage: FAA

WASHINGTON

A computer system outage that delayed flight departures across the US on Wednesday may have occurred due to "a damaged database file," the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said.

The agency said on Twitter that it is continuing a thorough review to determine the root cause of the outage to the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, which provides safety information to flight crews.

"Our preliminary work has traced the outage to a damaged database file. At this time, there is no evidence of a cyber attack," the flight agency said.

"We are working diligently to further pinpoint the causes of this issue and take all needed steps to prevent this kind of disruption from happening again," it added.

The FAA had ordered airlines to halt domestic departures until 9 a.m. Eastern Time (1400GMT) to enable the agency to "validate the integrity of flight and safety information," it said in a separate Twitter post.

The FAA provides air traffic services to more than 45,000 flights daily carrying 2.9 million passengers in the National Airspace System, according to its website.

The system is an airspace network that includes air navigation facilities, airports and landing areas.