Pete Buttigieg Has a New Crisis to Fix: On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration’s computers appeared to stop working, grounding all air travel in the U.S. for about 90 minutes. Over the course of the day, 9,000 flights were delayed and 1,300 were canceled.
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According to the New York Times, the FAA had “traced the outage to a damaged database file and that there was no evidence that it was caused by a cyberattack.”
“The FAA is continuing a thorough review to determine the root cause of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system outage. Our preliminary work has traced the outage to a damaged database file,” the government agency’s own statement 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.”
Following the post-holidays Southwest Airlines disaster following the holidays, this is the second major air calamity in the U.S. in just two weeks.
Politico positioned it as a “political headache” for the Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg.
“Wednesday’s nationwide flight meltdown has made Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg a prime target for Republicans’ coming oversight onslaught, with some conservatives accusing the administration of prioritizing ‘wokeness’ over the reliability of the nation’s aviation system.”
It’s not exactly clear why “wokeness” would have caused a computer failure. The department, for instance, recently changed the “Notice to Airmen” system to “Notice to Air Missions.”
But Pete Buttigieg has become politically embattled in a way that secretaries of transportation typically aren’t. But then again, most transportation secretaries aren’t prominent former presidential candidates who are widely expected to pursue elected political office again at some point in the future.
Buttigieg defended himself Wednesday.
“What people need to know is that we will not allow anything to take place that is not safe. This is precisely why our focus right now is on understanding and identifying and correcting anything related to causing potential system vulnerability,” he said, per Politico.
There has also been criticism of President Biden’s pick as the administrator of the FAA, Phil Washington, who is the CEO of the Denver Airport, but who has received much pushback against his nomination, in part because he is not experienced in aviation.
Peter Buttigieg has also been criticized by some Republicans for his use of private jets while serving as transportation secretary. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) wrote a letter last month to the Department of Transportation’s inspector general, to ask for a review of Buttigieg’s private jet usage.
“Pursuant to federal travel regulations, ‘[b]ecause the taxpayers should pay no more than necessary for your transportation, generally you may travel on Government aircraft only when a Government aircraft is the most cost-effective mode of travel,’ the senator said in the letter. “It is unclear why Secretary Buttigieg would require such costly travel in these instances when more economical options were reportedly available.”
In 2017, the Trump Administration’s first Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, resigned in part due to his use of private jets.
Last week, Buttigieg appeared on Fox News and was asked about his bringing his husband, Chasten, on a trip to the Invictus Games in the Netherlands.
Pete Buttigieg told host Bret Baier that it is customary, in a delegation like that, for the person leading it to bring their spouse.
“The question on my mind is, if no one’s raising questions about why Secretary Esper and his wife led that delegation – as well they should have – why is it any different when it’s me and my husband?,” the secretary said, invoking the name of the Trump-era defense secretary who brought his wife with him to the Invictus Games in the past.
“It’s standard practice for military aircraft to be provided for White House organized cabinet-level presidential delegations,” the White House said.
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Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
