FAA blames personnel incompetence for system outage that stopped flights
Brady Knox
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The Federal Aviation Administration announced that a nationwide system outage was likely due to incompetence on the part of some personnel.
A preliminary review supported the agency’s conclusion Wednesday that the outage was due to a damaged database file; the question now being explored is how the file was damaged.
The review blamed employees who didn’t follow the proper procedures.
FAA BLAMES ‘DAMAGED DATABASE FILE’ FOR OUTAGE
“The agency determined that a data file was damaged by personnel who failed to follow procedures. The system is functioning properly and cancellations today were below one percent,” the FAA said in a statement obtained by Reuters.
The FAA did not say which procedures were skipped that led up to the situation.
On Wednesday, problems with the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions system, which sends safety notifications to pilots, temporarily grounded all domestic flights in the United States. A hard reset of the system appeared to fix the problem, and there were almost no flight cancellations one day after.
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Nevertheless, the temporary outage showcased the fragility of the agency and led to increased calls for reform, particularly from Republican lawmakers.