Accidental Deletion of Data File by Contracted Personnel Led to Grounding of Thousands of Flights in US

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Thursday that a preliminary review found that contract workers “inadvertently deleted files” that disrupted a critical computer system and prompted a nationwide groundstop on Jan. 11 that killed more than 11,000 people. More flights were disrupted.

The FAA said the problem occurred while crews were “working to correct the synchronization between the live primary database and the backup database.” The FAA said that “so far no evidence of a cyberattack or malicious intent has been found.”

FAA Acting Administrator Billy Nolan plans to hold a virtual briefing Friday for lawmakers and staffers who have sought details on what went wrong with the pilot messaging database, which has led to a spate of reports since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Departing flights across the country stopped.

The agency said last week that the computer outage of the Notice to Air Mission (NOTAM) messaging system was caused by a procedural error related to a corrupted data file. The NOTAM system provides pilots, flight crews, and other users of US airspace with important safety notices.

The FAA said it has made necessary repairs to the system “and has taken steps to make the pilot message system “more resilient.”

The system outage occurred on January 10, but the FAA groundstop was not issued until the next morning.

Last week, a group of more than 120 US lawmakers told the FAA that the computer outage was “wholly unacceptable” and demanded the agency explain how it would avoid future incidents.

Senate Commerce Committee staffers have also asked the FAA to answer questions on the outage, including, “Why were airlines put in a position where they have the option of choosing to operate when the NOTAM system is down?” Could have done?”

read all breaking news Here

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)