U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Jerry Moran (R-KS), and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) announced Wednesday they had introduced legislation to prevent future Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system outages.
The NOTAM Improvement Act would require the FAA to create a task force to look into the resiliency and cybersecurity of the Notice to Air Mission (NOTAM) system that alerts airplane pilots and crews of any hazards along their flight routes. Companion legislation was introduced earlier this month in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN) ad passed on Wednesday.
The two pieces of legislation come just weeks after a NOTAM system outage forced the FAA to ground all flights in the U.S. for several hours on Jan. 11. The shutdown was the first nationwide shutdown in more than 20 years, officials said.
“Travelers in the United States deserve safe and dependable air travel service, not nationwide ground stops caused by system failures. By upgrading and modernizing the FAA’s NOTAM system, our bipartisan legislation would improve aviation safety and prevent system outages from derailing travel,” Klobuchar said.
The legislation would require that the task force be made up of representatives from airlines, airports, and airline pilots, as well as aircraft dispatchers and FAA personnel unions, and aviation safety and cybersecurity experts.
“The FAA has a responsibility to make certain air travel in the U.S. is as safe and efficient as possible,” Moran said. “The complete failure of the NOTAM system stranded millions of Americans and was a warning of the need to strengthen and modernize our air travel system. This legislation will help meet the demands of 21st-century travel and help prevent a similar failure in the future.”