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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
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Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
A NOTAM (officially meaning notice to air men, as used by the ICAO, FAA and the EASA;[1][2][3][4][5] or notice to aviation as used by the CAA;[6][7] and also previously known as notice to air missions in the United States[8]) is a notice filed with an aviation authority to alert aircraft pilots of potential hazards along a flight route or at a location that could affect the flight.[9] NOTAMs are notices or advisories that contain information concerning the establishment, conditions or change in any aeronautical facility, service, procedure or hazard, the timely knowledge of which may be essential to personnel and systems concerned with flight operations.[10]
NOTAMs are created and transmitted by government agencies and airport operators under guidelines specified by Annex 15: Aeronautical Information Services of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (CICA). A NOTAM is filed with an aviation authority to alert aircraft pilots of any hazards en route or at a specific location, or flight information region. The authority, in turn, provides a means of disseminating relevant NOTAMs to pilots.
The acronym NOTAM came into common use following the ratification of the CICA, which went into effect on 4 April 1947,[11] although early recorded use of the "Notice to Airmen" heading can be found in Flight International magazine in the UK.[12] Notices to airmen were normally published in a regular publication by each country's air authorities, as in the UK.[11]
Several developments and amendments to the CICA have resulted in the more automated system available today. At some point in the past, the NOTAM system became web-aware.[13]
In July 2017, Air Canada Flight 759 nearly crashed into four other airliners as it attempted to land on a San Francisco taxiway misidentified as a runway: the adjacent runway was closed, but the information was buried in the NOTAM. In September 2018, as a consequence of the findings of its investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) stated NOTAMs were unintelligible and ignored. The NTSB recommended more effective presentation of relevant information. NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt described NOTAMs as "a bunch of garbage that nobody pays any attention to". This led to an initiative of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to reform the NOTAM system.[14]
In early 2014, Russia occupied Crimea and as part of the takeover, Russia issued a new code, URFV to cover the Crimean airspace. The Ukrainian air controller has since been forced to issue NOTAMs under the UKFV code (belonging to Simferopol FIR[15]), basically a verbatim repeater.[16][17] As a result, all the UKFV NOTAMs advising about this area affix this note:[16]
DUE ACTIVITY PUBLISHED BY RUSSIAN FEDERATION. THE PUBLICATION BY RUSSIAN FEDERATION OF INFORMATION RELATED TO AIRSPACE UNDER RESPONSIBILITY OF UKRAINE DOES NOT COMPLY WITH THE PROVISIONS OF THE ICAO AIR NAVIGATION PLAN - EUROPEAN REGION (DOC 7754) AND THE ICAO ANNEXES 11 AND 15.
In the run-up to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities closed large parts of the Black Sea, the Kerch Strait, and almost the entire Sea of Azov "for missile and artillery live fire exercises." A spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry protested the Russian NOTAMs over this unprecedentedly large exercise area, which essentially obstructed international shipping and had economic consequences for Ukrainian ports such as Mariupol.[18]
From December 2021 until February 2025, the meaning of the acronym was modified to "Notice to Air Missions" in the United States.[8]
Should the antiquated US NOTAM Service (USNS) fail, the FAA orders a ground stop for all US air traffic, as highlighted in the 'Incidents' section below. Full national ground stops impose severe economic and transportation penalties. To mitigate future incidents, the 118th Congress of the United States passed into law H.R.346 - NOTAM Improvement Act of 2023 which requires the FAA to conduct a taskforce by 30 September 2024 determining how to modernize both USNS and the Foreign NOTAM Service (FNS) in the US . The FAA's NOTAM Taskforce determined the need for a new, modernized NOTAM service and conducted a competitive prototyping Other Transaction Authority with industry through March of 2025 when they awarded the work to CGI Federal.
CGI Federal began work on a FISMA High Baseline accredited, fully containerized microservice, cloud-native, and ICAO compatible web application and infrastructure called "Notice to Airmen Modernization Service" (NMS) under the direction of a FAA Project Management Office dedicated to this task. NMS delivered initial machine-to-machine USNS API capability to a select group of government and commercial users on 30 September 2025. NMS launches global USNS service to individual public, organizational, and API users in mid-April 2026 with FNS service expected to be fully available by early fall 2026.[19]
NOTAMs are issued (and reported) for several reasons, such as:
Aviation authorities typically exchange NOTAMs over Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunication Network (AFTN) circuits.[20]
Software allows pilots to identify NOTAMs near their intended route or at the intended destination. Some complain that the volume and increasing triviality of NOTAMs has reduced their usefulness.[21]
In the U.S. Air Force information technology enterprise, C4 NOTAMs (command, control, communications, and computer notices to airmen) are notices of new or updated Air Force Network Operating Instructions (AFNOIs). Often, these notices serve to direct Air Force computer administrators to install security updates or change the configuration of computer systems.[22]
Flight planning applications for electronic flight bag can help decipher and better organize NOTAMs.[23]
The following describes ICAO NOTAMs. NOTAMs are published using all upper case letters. Some countries, such as the United States, may diverge from the following ICAO standards.
This is a typical NOTAM for London Heathrow airport:
A1234/06 NOTAMR A1212/06 Q) EGTT/QMXLC/IV/NBO/A/000/999/5129N00028W005 A) EGLL B) 0609050500 C) 0704300500 E) DUE WIP TWY B SOUTH CLSD BTN 'F' AND 'R'. TWY 'R' CLSD BTN 'A' AND 'B' AND DIVERTED VIA NEW GREEN CL AND BLUE EDGE LGT. CTN ADZ
This decodes into the following:
A1234 issued in 2006 (06)R) NOTAM A1212 issued in 2006 (06)EGTT)MX)LC)I) flights and VFR flights (V)N), for PIB (Pre-flight Information Bulletin) entry (B), concerning flight operations (O)A)000/999)5129N00028W)005)EGLL)060905 0500)070430 0500)DUE WIP), taxiway "B South" is closed between "F" and "R" (TWY B SOUTH CLSD BTN 'F' AND 'R'). Taxiway "R" is closed between "A" and "B" (TWY 'R' CLSD BTN 'A' AND 'B') and is diverted via a new green centre line and blue edge lighting (AND DIVERTED VIA NEW GREEN CL AND BLUE EDGE LGT). Caution advised (CTN ADZ).In the United States, NOTAMs are classified by the FAA into five categories:[24]
From left to right, U.S. NOTAMs contain the following elements:
| Keyword | Meaning |
|---|---|
| RWY | Runway |
| TWY | Taxiway |
| RAMP | Terminal ramp |
| APRON | Airport apron |
| AD | Aerodrome/Airport |
| OBST | Obstruction |
| NAV | Anything relating to navigational equipment, e.g. VOR or NDB being out of service. |
| COM | Any other communications, e.g. ATIS. |
| SVC | When tower, fuel, customs service hours are available. |
| AIRSPACE | The airspace surrounding the affect location. |
| U | Other aeronautical information, but unverified. |
| O | Other aeronautical information. |
These NOTAMS are likely to use FAA-specific abbreviations Archived 2023-06-25 at the Wayback Machine.
Tok Junction Airport has an unverified vehicle that is abandoned on its runway.
Los Angeles International's VOR is out of service.
There is an airshow being held at Oshkosh airport with aircraft flying 5,000 feet and below within a 5 nautical mile radius. Avoidance is advised from 2000 UTC on July 15, 2007, until 2200 on July 15, 2007.
On 11 January 2023, the US NOTAM system failed, which grounded all domestic flights until 9:00 AM EST (UTC-5) the same day.[26][27]
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
A NOTAM (officially meaning notice to air men, as used by the ICAO, FAA and the EASA; or notice to aviation as used by the CAA; and also previously known as notice to air missions in the United States) is a notice filed with an aviation authority to alert aircraft pilots of potential hazards along a flight route or at a location that could affect the flight. NOTAMs are notices or advisories that contain information concerning the establishment, conditions or change in any aeronautical facility, service, procedure or hazard, the timely knowledge of which may be essential to personnel and systems concerned with flight operations. NOTAMs are created and transmitted by government agencies and airport operators under guidelines specified by Annex 15: Aeronautical Information Services of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (CICA). A NOTAM is filed with an aviation authority to alert aircraft pilots of any hazards en route or at a specific location, or flight information region. The authority, in turn, provides a means of disseminating relevant NOTAMs to pilots.
A Digital NOTAM (DIGITAM) is a data set made available through digital services containing information concerning the establishment, condition or change in any aeronautical facility, service, procedure or hazard, the timely knowledge of which is essential to systems and automated equipment used by personnel concerned with flight operations. The Digital NOTAM encoding is based on the Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM) version 5, which has been developed in cooperation between the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL) and the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), with the support of the international AIS community. The DIGITAM eliminates the free form text contained within a NOTAM and replaces the text with a series of structured facts, which obtain to the aeronautical entity concerned. In 2012, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) successfully launched the first global digital NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) system to all airports and airplanes in the United States.
NOTAM Code is an aeronautical radiotelegraph and radiotelephony brevity code used to transmit information about radio navigation aids, airports, lighting facilities, dangers to aircraft, and actions related to search and rescue. All NOTAM Codes start with the letter Q, to distinguish them from radio call signs, and always consist of five letters (counting the Q), to avoid confusing them with Q codes. These codes are defined by ICAO Doc 8400: ICAO Abbreviations and Codes.
A prohibited airspace is an area (volume) of airspace within which flight of aircraft is not allowed, usually due to security concerns. It is one of many types of special use airspace designations and is depicted on aeronautical charts with the letter "P" followed by a serial number. It differs from restricted airspace in that entry is typically forbidden at all times from all aircraft and is not subject to clearance from ATC or the airspace's controlling body. According to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA): "Restricted Areas contain airspace of defined dimensions identified by an area on the surface of the earth within which the flight of aircraft is prohibited. Such areas are established for security or other reasons associated with the national welfare. These areas are published in the Federal Register and are depicted on aeronautical charts." Some prohibited airspace may be supplemented via NOTAMs. For example, Prohibited Area 40 (P-40) and Restricted Area 4009 (R4009) often have additional restricted airspace added via a NOTAM when the president of the United States visits Camp David in Maryland, while normally the airspace outside of P-40 and R4009 is not prohibited/restricted. Violating prohibited airspace established for national security purposes may result in military interception and/or the possibility of an attack upon the violating aircraft, or if this is avoided then large fines and jail time are often incurred. Aircraft violating or about to violate prohibited airspace are often warned beforehand on 121.5 MHz, the emergency frequency for aircraft.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Madam C.J. Walker
