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#The Wall Street Journal: FAA says contractor unintentionally caused last week’s air-traffic outage

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“The Wall Street Journal: FAA says contractor unintentionally caused last week’s air-traffic outage”

The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday that a contractor working for the air-safety regulator had unintentionally deleted computer files used in a pilot-alert system, leading to an outage that disrupted U.S. air traffic last week.

The agency, which declined to identify the contractor, said its personnel were working to correctly synchronize two databases—a main one and a backup—used for the alert system when the files were unintentionally deleted.

The FAA said it had taken steps to prevent a recurrence of the outage in the system used for collecting and distributing the alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions, or Notams.

“The agency has so far found no evidence of a cyberattack or malicious intent,” the FAA said. The FAA added that it had made necessary repairs to the system and has taken steps to make it more resilient.

Last week, a breakdown with the Notam system that began Jan. 10 prompted the agency to halt domestic departures for nearly two hours the following day, leading to delays and contributing to cancellations across the country.

An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.

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