Jan 20, 2023 14:40:00

Conclusion that the cause of the temporary cancellation of flights throughout the United States due to system failure is ``file deletion by contractor''

Due to the system failure of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that occurred around 21:00 on January 11, 2023, all aircraft throughout the United States were ordered to suspend operations, causing more than 10,000 flights to be delayed or canceled. An FAA investigation revealed that the cause was ``the contractor unintentionally deleted the necessary files''.

FAA NOTAM Statement | Federal Aviation Administration

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-notam-statement

FAA Says Contractor Unintentionally Caused Outage That Disrupted Flights - WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/articles/contractor-unintentionally-caused-pilot-alert-system-outage-that-disrupted-flights-faa-says-11674175850

FAA finds outage was unintentionally caused by contractors | The Hill
https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/3820617-faa-finds-outage-was-unintentionally-caused-by-contractors/

US FAA says 'unintentionally deleted files' prompted computer outage | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-faa-says-unintentionally-deleted-files-prompted-computer-outage-2023-01-20/

On January 11, 2023, the FAA ordered all aircraft across the United States to stop taking off from around 21:00 due to the system going down. Although the measures were lifted about two hours later at 22:50, the total number of flight delays and cancellations totaled more than 10,000 by January 12, with more than 2 million passengers on domestic flights. It has affected.

Flights across the United States temporarily canceled due to computer system malfunction - GIGAZINE

After a preliminary investigation on January 12, the FAA concluded that the downtime was caused by an anomaly in the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, which warns pilots of potential hazards along flight routes. showed. He also said that a corrupted database file was the cause, adding that there was no evidence of a cyberattack, and that it would continue to investigate.

Update 6: We are continuing a thorough review to determine the root cause of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system outage. Our preliminary work has traced the outage to a damaged database file. At this time, there is no evidence of a cyber attack. (1/2)

— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023

The NOTAM system is a system that transmits important information to people involved in the operation of aircraft, and is used for emergency communications that are difficult to convey by other means. Information on changing conditions such as weather, volcanic activity, and airspace restrictions, and information on abnormal situations such as parachutes, rocket launches, and military exercises, as well as abnormal situations in the airspace and airports, such as icing, lighting failures, and flocks of birds. to let you know.

The FAA said of the NOTAM system down on January 19, 2023, 'A contractor working for the Aviation Safety Regulatory Agency unintentionally deleted computer files used by the NOTAM system, resulting in air traffic disruption. I did,” he announced. The problem arose during work to fix the synchronization between the primary database and its backup database. The FAA also concluded that ``so far, there is no evidence of cyberattacks or malicious intent.''

``The FAA is making necessary repairs to the system and is taking steps to increase the resilience of the NOTAM system,'' the FAA statement said. In addition, we have announced that we will continue to investigate the down of the NOTAM system.