LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The Federal Aviation Administration said it has identified the cause of the massive outage that led to a nationwide ground stop and thousands of delayed and canceled flights last week.
According to a report by CNN, the agency blames a contractor working for the FAA who unintentionally deleted files related to a key pilot safety system.
The FAA determined that the issue with the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system occurred while the contractor was "working to correct synchronization between the live primary database and a backup database."
The NOTAM system sends alerts to pilots to let them know conditions that could affect the safety of their flights. NOTAM messages could include information about lighting being out on a certain runway, inadequate safety lighting of a structure near an airport, or an air show taking place in the airspace.
The NOTAM database failure triggered the FAA to implement the first nationwide stop of air traffic in more than 20 years.
The FAA said it has found no evidence of a cyber-attack or malicious intent. The agency said it has taken steps to make the system more resilient.
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