Wed, 01/11/2023 - 7:45am

SUSAN JOHNS

Planes can still take off from and land at Wiscasset Municipal Airport this morning, Wednesday, Jan. 11 as the Federal Aviation Administration addresses a communications system issue, Airport Manager Richard Tetrev and pilot and Airport Advisory Committee Chair Steve Williams confirmed in phone interviews.

Tuesday night, Jan. 10, Tetrev put out an email notice to Town Manager Dennis Simmons and what Tetrev told Wiscasset Newspaper was the airport’s email list of about 100 others including hangar owners and pilots who regularly fly out of Wiscasset. The notice read: “Please be advised that the FAA has notified us that (Notice to Air Missions/NOTAM) is currently down. Check NOTAMS prior to your next flight and if it has not been restored call ahead to your destination to make sure there are no issues.”

Tetrev told Wiscasset Newspaper he was not getting any calls of concern from pilots the night the issue began or the next morning. “I think (the nighttime notice) nipped that in the bud. And now (the NOTAM) issue is national news,” he said when it was ongoing.

Tetrev said he spoke with the FAA Tuesday night, Jan. 10 and at that time the agency did not yet have an estimated time the issue would be resolved.

Williams explained, FAA “requires pilots to avail themselves of all information at the departure, en route and at the destination. It does not specifically say that that information has to come from the NOTAM system. A flight going into Wiscasset could contact the airport manager and find out if there’s any issues.”

Williams had no plans to fly Jan. 12, but was wondering if the NOTAM incident would affect an Allegiant flight he planned to board in New Hampshire the next day to get to a business meeting in Florida. “I need this cleared up fast.”

At 8:50 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 11, FAA.gov said normal air traffic operations in the U.S. “are resuming gradually ... following an overnight outage to the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system that provides safety information to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted. The agency continues to look into the cause of the initial problem.” That evening, the agency reported it was continuing “a thorough review” for a cause; so far, it appeared to be a damaged database file, with “no evidence of a cyber attack. The FAA is working diligently to further pinpoint the causes of this issue and take all needed steps to prevent this kind of disruption from happening again.”

Wiscasset Newspaper texted Williams the afternoon of Jan. 12 to see how he made out with his plan to board a flight that day. “Just landing (in) Orlando. No problems at all,” he wrote back.