Report: Human Error and Software Meltdown Caused Bumbling FAA’s Shutdown Fiasco

The FAA ordered a nationwide halt to domestic flights in the United States on Wednesday morning due to a major software meltdown. The error that led to this failure reportedly was caused by an engineer replacing one file with another while working on the system. One FAA official stated, “It was an honest mistake that cost the country millions.”

ABC News reports that according to a senior FAA official, an engineer accidentally replaced one file with another while working on a project, causing a complete system meltdown. FAA staff scrambled to determine what went wrong as the system demonstrated multiple issues and ultimately failed. Millions of dollars were lost as a result of this error, which affected thousands of flights across the country. The official stated: “It was an honest mistake that cost the country millions.”

When the ground stop was lifted, and departures resumed at two of the busiest hubs in the country, Newark, New Jersey, and Atlanta, Georgia, the FAA declared that normal operations were “resuming gradually.” The FAA stated that there was no proof of a cyberattack while still looking into what caused the initial issue.

Notice To All Air Missions (NOTAM), the system in question, informs pilots of flight dangers and urgent restrictions. Following the outage, the FAA is still working to restore the NOTAM system fully. Redundancies would have likely prevented the cascading failures if the FAA’s new NOTAM system had been in place, but the senior FAA official claimed that the current outdated system was unable to prevent the error.

According to Joe Biden’s Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a thorough investigation is required to stop similar accidents in the future. He said, “We’re going to own it, just like we asked the airlines to own their businesses and operations, when there’s a problem in the FAA that needs to be looked at.”

Hearings before Congress are anticipated, and the pace of system replacement may be accelerated. Buttigieg explained that there “was an issue with irregularities in the messages that were going out” overnight when asked what caused the system to crash. However, more information is still needed to determine what caused the widespread failure.

“Now we have to understand how this could have happened in the first place. Why the usual redundancies that would stop it from being that disrupted, did not stop it from being disrupted this time, and what the original source of the errors or the corrupted files would have been,” Buttigieg said.

According to an internal memo from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency that ABC News was able to obtain, the FAA first reported the system failure on Tuesday. Notably, a replacement for the failed FAA system is long overdue.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) recently stated that the shutdown was just another example of “if we go woke, we go broke.”

Breitbart News reported:

On Wednesday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “John Bachman Now,” Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) stated that the shutdown of the NOTAM system that led to flights being grounded is an example of “if we go woke, we go broke” and the left being more concerned with symbolism ahead of substance considering that in 2021, the NOTAM system had its name changed from Notice to Airmen to the more “inclusive” Notice to Air Missions.

Host John Bachman asked, “In 2021, the FAA changed the wording for the acronym from — for this NOTAM system from Notice to Airmen to Notice to Air Missions, ‘which is inclusive of all aviators and missions.’ But they never actually fixed the system and we have this antiquated air transportation system in this country. It’s heavily subsidized by taxpayers. We paid billions of dollars out of our pockets to keep these airlines afloat. They can’t figure it out. What is the solution here for a more streamlined, more efficient way of air travel, considering it’s so important?”

Moore responded, “Well, I think you’re right, John. Number one, we know if we go woke, we go broke. … I think you’re right. A lot of times with this crowd, it’s more about symbolism over substance. We need to be fixing systems and have people that work showing up to do the job and make sure that we’re focusing on getting people, hiring people that are qualified to do the job.”

Read more at ABC News here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan