Outage impacts three flights, 500 people at Kahului Airport
All were bound for Mainland; officials say 180 travelers spent the night at the airport
American Airlines jets are seen at Kahului Airport in 2020. Three American Airlines flights that were canceled late Tuesday night were the only flights out of Maui that were impacted by a safety information system failure that led the FAA to ground thousands of flights for airlines all across the U.S. late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
Tyler Blaine and daughter Addie Blaine wait in an American Airlines plane Tuesday night at Kahului Airport. Their flight was one of thousands canceled across the U.S. due to a safety information system failure. Photo courtesy of Leah Blaine
Lydia Blaine rests on her mom Leah Blaine’s arm while they wait on an American Airlines plane at the Kahului Airport Tuesday night. Photo courtesy of Leah Blaine
American Airlines jets are seen at Kahului Airport in 2020. Three American Airlines flights that were canceled late Tuesday night were the only flights out of Maui that were impacted by a safety information system failure that led the FAA to ground thousands of flights for airlines all across the U.S. late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
Tyler Blaine and daughter Addie Blaine wait in an American Airlines plane Tuesday night at Kahului Airport. Their flight was one of thousands canceled across the U.S. due to a safety information system failure. Photo courtesy of Leah Blaine
Lydia Blaine rests on her mom Leah Blaine’s arm while they wait on an American Airlines plane at the Kahului Airport Tuesday night. Photo courtesy of Leah Blaine
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Leah Blaine and her family sat on a plane at Kahului Airport for more than five hours beginning late Tuesday night before their flight was canceled.
The family's American Airlines flight to Dallas, Texas, was among the thousands of flights across the U.S. that were canceled or delayed due to the failure of a system that offers safety information to pilots.
Without the Notice to Air Missions system, also known as NOTAM, up and running, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily prevented any planes from taking off.
The ground stop was lifted and normal air traffic operations were "resuming gradually" by 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, the FAA said. The agency added in a statement on Wednesday afternoon that it was "continuing a thorough review to determine the root cause" of the outage.
"Our preliminary work has traced the outage to a damaged database file," the FAA said. "At this time, there is 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."
At Kahului Airport, the flight stoppage occurred late Tuesday night, Maui District Airports Manager Marvin Moniz said Wednesday morning.
He noted that three American Airlines flights that run the red-eye route to the Mainland from Kahului on Tuesday were canceled. This included the flight to Dallas along with one flight each to Los Angeles and Phoenix.
State Department of Transportation Director Ed Sniffen confirmed Wednesday afternoon that those three American flights were the only ones canceled out of Maui.
About 500 people were impacted by the cancellations, with most finding a hotel room, he said. But he added that 180 people stayed at the Kahului Airport overnight.
He expected the Los Angeles and Phoenix flights to depart Wednesday afternoon and a Dallas flight to leave Wednesday night.
"We sat in the plane on the runway for more than 5 hours before they canceled our flight," Blaine said via Facebook Messenger Wednesday afternoon. "They finally found us a hotel, and we now fly out (tonight)."
The Southern Missouri resident said the airline found passengers hotels and gave them a voucher.
She said her two daughters, Lydia, 8, and Addie, 12, "were really troopers through the whole thing."
"It's hard to be gone extra days. I'm a teacher and that is always difficult to be gone. But, if I must be stranded by an airline, at least I can wait it out on the beach," she said.
She took photos of her family as they waited in the plane on the runway. Their flight was supposed to leave at 10 p.m. Tuesday.
She also told CNN that around 10 p.m., she was told her flight was unable to depart and would be delayed. At first they were told it was an American Airlines computer error but then were told it was an FAA issue and that planes were grounded all over the country.
Passengers were given the option to disembark, but she remained on the plane since she was traveling with her children, who were already asleep, she told CNN. They later found out the flight was canceled.
In one of Leah Blaine's photos is her husband, Tyler, giving a thumbs up while Addie signals a thumbs down.
Leah Blaine is also pictured with Lydia asleep on her arm.
Hawaiian Airlines spokesman Alex Da Silva said via email Wednesday that the outage "had minimal impact on our operations due to the time it occurred."
The Associated Press reported the system breaking down late Tuesday and then being fixed midmorning Wednesday, which would be early in the morning Hawaii time.
Da Silva said Hawaiian held one U.S. Mainland departure by 35 minutes, but otherwise Hawaiian's flights were operating as scheduled.
* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.