White House says ‘no evidence of a cyber attack’ after outage grounded flights across US

A ‘ground stop’ halted takeoffs across the US because pilots could not access a key computer system

The White House said there is “no evidence of a cyber attack at this point” after a computer outage led the Federal Aviation Administration to halt aviation takeoffs across the US earlier in the day.

“The president has directed Department of Transportation to conduct a full investigation into the causes and provide regular updates. Again, this is incredibly important to top priority the safety of Americans who are flying. We want to make sure that they’re safe,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

Earlier on Wednesday, President Joe Biden said top Transportation Department and Federal Aviation Administration officials aren’t sure what caused the outage that sparked widespread travel disruption. Overall, more than 10,000 flights were impacted by the disruption.

Mr Biden told reporters at the White House that he’d spoken earlier with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who’d told him his department had not yet determined what brought down a nationwide computer system responsible for distributing must-read bulletins known as Notices to Air Missions.

"I just spoke with Buttigieg. They don't know what the cause is. But I was on the phone with him ... I told them to report directly to me when they find out,” he said, addressing press who’d gathered to observe him and First Lady Jill Biden depart on a short helicopter flight to Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre, where Ms Biden was set to undergo a surgical procedure.

The president pointed out that planes currently in the air can land but new flights cannot take off at the moment. Shortly before 9am ET, the FAA lifted the ground stop.

“They don't know what the cause of it is, they expect in a couple of hours they'll have a good sense of what caused it and will respond at that time,” he added.

Mr Buttigieg also weighed in on the outage on Twitter, writing that he has been “in touch” with the FAA about the computer outage, which he described as “affecting a key system for providing safety information to pilots”.

“FAA is working to resolve this issue swiftly and safely so that air traffic can resume normal operations, and will continue to provide updates,” he said.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also said Mr Biden had a “full briefing” on the matter. She further explained that the FAA has “no evidence of a cyberattack at this point,” and said Mr Biden has “directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes”.

At 8.16 am ET, the FAA announced it had allowed takeoffs to resume at two of the largest airports in the US, Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. The agency said it expects to allow departures at other airports to resume at 9am.