U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, (D-Wash.), Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, released the below statement ahead of the Wednesday, February 15, hearing with Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen regarding the causes and impacts of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system outage on January 11, 2023, which prompted Nolan to issue the first nation-wide ground stop since 9/11:  

“The FAA must be the global gold standard for aviation safety. Tomorrow, we will examine what led to the failure of FAA’s NOTAM alert system last month. FAA needs to get it right on modernizing its technology and infrastructure. FAA’s systems must be safe, secure, and globally competitive.  I also expect Acting Administrator Nolen to address incursions in our airspace and preventing recent “close calls” and other safety incidents.”