The Federal Aviation Administration said on Thursday that the system failure that caused thousands of flight delays last week occurred because contractors “unintentionally deleted files” on the alert system for pilots, leading to a standstill of planes and frustrated passengers.
The F.A.A. said in a statement that the workers had been trying to “correct synchronization” between the main database for the Notice to Air Missions alerts and a backup database when the files were mistakenly deleted, causing the outage that snarled air traffic throughout the day on Jan. 11.
Investigators have found no evidence of a cyberattack or other malicious intent, according to the agency.
“The F.A.A. made the necessary repairs to the system and has taken steps to make the NOTAM system more resilient,” the agency said, referring to the Notice to Air Missions alerts.Those alerts are crucial to planning flights, according to the agency, and are used to share information about hazards in the air or on the ground, such as closed runways or airspace restrictions.
F.A.A. Says Outage Was Mistakenly Caused by Contractors
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