This has not happened here in the US since the tragic events on 9/11/2001; and it is apparently a computer failure that is causing the problem. People everywhere are stranded, with no idea when the system will be back up again and flights resumed. The latest reports are that the FAA has got things under control again, and flights are starting to be resumed; but this is a concerning thing, especially coming right on the heels of the power stations being attacked over Christmas weekend. One has to wonder if this is part of some sort of hacking attack/cyber attack, and not just a malfunction. Sine the only other time this has happened was on a day of national security , and the shutdown was done on purpose then, it seems unlikely that a malfunction of this magnitude is likely to just occur. https://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2023/jan/11/thousands-of-flights-delayed-in-usafterair-traffic-system-failure-faa-litsground-stop
"Before commencing a flight, pilots are required to consult NOTAMs, or Notices to Air Missions, which list potential adverse impacts on flights, from runway construction to the potential for icing. The system used to be telephone-based, with pilots calling dedicated flight service stations for the information, but has now moved online. Breakdowns in the NOTAM system appear to be rare. "I don't ever remember the NOTAM system going down like this. I've been flying 53 years," said John Cox, a former airline pilot and now an aviation-safety consultant. According to FAA advisories, the NOTAM system failed at 8:28 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday preventing new or amended notices from being distributed to pilots. The FAA resorted to a telephone hotline in an effort to keep departures flying overnight, but as daytime traffic picked up it overwhelmed the telephone backup system."
I think we are in a cyber war with Russia at the moment, and you can expect more things like this to happen. I understand there was another interruption of the Colonial Pipeline, but it wasn't made public and things were back on like in fairly short order. Fortunately, this outage didn't affect planes in the air as I understand it. Just imagine if the ATC system went offline for an extended period.
A week or so ago, something similar to this happened to Southwest Airlines, and they said it was a computer/software kind of problem. Yesterday, all of the 911 calls were down in the whole state of Michigan, plus a train that was going non-stop from DC to Florida is stopped and stranded in North Carolina (if I am remembering right), with no rescue yet. Then today, we have this happen, which has never happened accidentally. Th only time it happened was on 911, when the government intentionally shut all the planes down. Oh, and do not forget all of the power outages over Christmas, besides the power station attacks, that were happening all over. Might be practice for an even larger attack , the way these things are happening.
I think the general American public view the Ukraine War as a distant thing that doesn't affect us, just like all the wars we have been in since WWII and I think the government wants to keep it that way for as long as possible. I have also been pondering the possibility that there may be some "weather warfare" going on. China, Russia, and the U.S. have all been dealing with weather modification technology over the past 20 years or so. If you look at the ATC records, you can see flights labelled "weather modification" they are that open with it. Of course, those flights might be doing something else clandestine, who knows. I saw one flight over the Dakotas that was labeled as a NASA weather modification flight that turned of its transponder and disappeared. It made me wonder what it was really up to. Anyway, everybody in the know realizes there is cyber warfare going on on both sides. I don't know if China has become involved yet, but when they are ready to attack Taiwan, they will light things up as well. We have something going on in space, but I don't have a clue what it is and I haven't seen much comment on it other than "It is conventional, not nuclear in nature." No idea what that means, but I suspect that is why the Space Force was created instead of a "Cyber Force", which seems more logical.
24 hours after the US air traffic system went down, a similar occurrence took place in Canada, and the Philippines also had this problem, although I'm not sure what the date on that one was. Perhaps coincidentally, Bitcoin surged shortly after the US air traffic system went down. However, when hackers demand a ransom in order to restore a system, they demand payment in Bitcoin, so maybe it's not coincidental.