January 23, 2023: On Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration said that a contractor removed files before an outage of a pilot-alert system that removed thousands of aviation in the previous week.

“A preliminary FAA review of the previous week’s outage of the Notice to Air Missions plan decided that contract personnel without knowing is yanking files while performing to correct synchronization amid the live direct database and a database backup,” the FAA shared.

Those notices give commanders security notifications, such as runway closures.

The FAA reiterated that it uncovered zero evidence of a cyberattack or “evil intent” and stands still analyzing what occurred.

The agency updated lawmakers on its investigation on Thursday. Lawmakers from parties required answers regarding technology vulnerabilities in the U.S. flight design.

Airline executives groused about poor appropriation and staffing for the FAA.

“I lay this on the fact that which gives them the resources, the funding, the staffing, the tools, the technology they demand,” Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian noted on Friday. “Hopefully, this will be calling to our political leaders in Washington that we need is doing better.”

 Scott Kirby said on the group’s revenues on Wednesday that the outage and consequences of travel chaos “ought to be a wake-up revenue for all of us in aviation, a unique many of us have said for a long time the FAA needs additional resources.”