FAA Says Outage That Grounded Over 1,200 Domestic Flights Was Caused by Human Error
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The Federal Aviation Administration is speaking out about the computer outage that grounded more than 1,200 domestic flights on Jan. 11.
In a statement released on Thursday, Jan. 19, the FAA revealed that human error was the cause of the technical issue.
"A preliminary FAA review of last week's outage of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system determined that contract personnel unintentionally deleted files while working to correct synchronization between the live primary database and a backup database," the FAA stated.
They added that there was "no evidence of a cyber-attack" and that they are working on making the NOTAM system "more resilient."
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On the day of the incident, the FAA released a statement that the NOTAM system, which communicates essential information to flight personnel, had "failed" that morning, putting a "pause" on all domestic departures until 9 a.m. EST.
They also issued updates via Twitter.
"The FAA is working to restore its Notice to Air Missions System," the agency tweeted at 6:29 a.m. EST. "We are performing final validation checks and reloading the system now," adding that "operations across the National Airspace System" were affected.
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The FAA is working to restore its Notice to Air Missions System. We are performing final validation checks and reloading the system now.
Operations across the National Airspace System are affected.
We will provide frequent updates as we make progress.— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023
Later that morning just before 7 a.m. EST, the FAA tweeted another update: "While some functions are beginning to come back online, National Airspace System operations remain limited."
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At 8:50 a.m. EST, the FAA announced that flights were beginning to operate again. "Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews," they said. "The ground stop has been lifted."
