HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — All flights out of the Richmond International Airport (RIC) were put on pause Wednesday morning until 9 a.m. in accordance with a nationwide order by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The FAA ordered all U.S. flights to delay departures until 9 a.m. after a computer outage at the FAA quickly cascaded through the system at airports nationwide, causing thousands of delays across the United States.
According to a spokesperson for the Richmond International Airport, Troy Bell, 19 departures were scheduled at the airport between 6 and 9 a.m. Wednesday.
At 8 a.m., there were more than 2,500 delayed flights within, into or out of the United States, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. The Associated Press reports the number is likely to increase.
According to the Associated Press, the White House said that there is no evidence of a cyberattack, but President Joe Biden directed the Department of Transportation to investigate the cause of the disruption. As of 8 a.m., there was no known cause of the outage, although Biden said there is no evidence of a cyberattack.
The ground stop was lifted and flight departures resumed at 9 a.m.
“Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews,” the FAA wrote.
