In its preliminary analysis, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) discovered that contractors working on the system that informs pilots of a potential threat “unintentionally” erased some files, causing the entire mechanism to fail on January 11, affecting over 11,000 flights.
The workers were also attempting “to rectify synchronization between the live primary database and a backup database” when some of the files were mistakenly erased, according to the regulator.
They reaffirmed that they found no “signs of a cyberattack or malicious intent” and that the exact cause is still being investigated.
“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 said on Thursday.
The airline agency stated that it is repairing the system and taking steps to make the pilot communication system “more resilient.”
The FAA announced last week that the statewide NOTAM outage—which sends essential safety notifications to pilots, flight crews, and other users of US airspace—was caused by a technical error connected to a corrupted data file.
The statement came in response to a request from more than 120 MPs who said the computer failure was “totally unacceptable” and demanded an explanation on how to prevent future tragedies.
FAA is scheduled to tell lawmakers on the incident on Friday
Meanwhile, airline executives have complained of personnel shortages and low funding of the FAA, calling on the government to “need to do better”. The FAA is set to brief legislators on the incident this coming Friday.
“I lay this on the fact that we are not giving them the resources, the funding, the staffing, the tools, the technology they need,” Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said on “Squawk Box” last week, according to CNBC.
“Hopefully this will be the call to our political leaders in Washington that we need to do better.”