Minnesota State Wire

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Representative Pete Stauber (R-MN) announced that their bipartisan legislation to help prevent Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system outages was signed into law. The NOTAM Improvement Act would require the FAA to establish a task force to strengthen the resiliency and cybersecurity of the NOTAM system, which alerts pilots of safety and location hazards on flight routes. 

“By upgrading and modernizing the FAA’s NOTAM system, this new law will improve aviation safety and prevent system outages from derailing travel,” said Klobuchar. “Travelers in the United States deserve safe and dependable air travel service, not nationwide ground stops caused by system failures like we saw earlier this year. That’s why as co-chair of the Senate Travel and Tourism Caucus, I’m focused on strengthening our air travel infrastructure.”

“I am pleased that the NOTAM Improvement Act has been signed into law by the President,” said Stauber. “This bill is critical to improving the safety of our skies for pilots and passengers by bringing experts from across the air travel industry together to improve the NOTAM system. We must avoid another system crash like the one in January that grounded all domestic air traffic for the first time since 9/11, and this bill is a crucial first step.”

The task force would be composed of representatives from air carriers, airports, and airline pilot, aircraft dispatcher, and FAA personnel unions, as well as aviation safety and cybersecurity experts.

The NOTAM Improvement Act was introduced by Senators Klobuchar (D-MN), Jerry Moran (R-KS), and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) in the Senate and by Representatives Stauber (R-MN) and Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) in the House following a NOTAM system outage in January that grounded flights nationwide.

Original source can be found here.