The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said contractors mistakenly deleted files in the pilot notification system.
All U.S. domestic flights were grounded last week due to failures in the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) program, a system that notifies pilots of safety-critical conditions at airports and other areas that planes may cross, including everything from bird movement warnings to construction of the runway.
As of Jan. 11, more than 10,000 flights were delayed and more than 1,300 canceled, according to FlightAware, marking the first national flight ban in nearly two decades. The problem has even affected military flights, which rely in part on NOTAMs, with pilots reportedly having to call to ask about potential hazards.
The FAA later said the system failed after “personnel who did not follow procedures” corrupted certain files. And now it has become known that the contractors were synchronizing the main and backup databases when they “inadvertently deleted files” that were necessary to support the operation of the alert system.
As noted by The Washington Post, it is not clear at this time how the deletion of some files led to the failure of the entire system. The FAA has taken steps to make the system more resilient, but the incident certainly calls into question the reliability of such outdated technology.
The US Department of Transportation previously described the NOTAM system as “vintage equipment that is failing” in a budget document that requested $30 million in funding to modernize it.
