FAA points finger at Bethesda-based contractor for systems outage that grounded airplanes
The Federal Aviation Administration has identified a Bethesda-based company as the contractor behind the mishap that grounded air traffic on Jan. 11.
Agency officials pointed to Spatial Front as the contractor responsible for unintentionally deleting a file while working on a live database and backup of the Notice to Air Missions, or NOTAM, system that warns pilots of potential hazards. The deletion led to a morning ground stop that was the first of its kind since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Spatial Front told The Washington Post that it is “fully cooperating with the ongoing investigation.”
The newspaper found an archived version of the company’s website that said it had 50 staff members at FAA offices working on more than 90 systems, including NOTAM.
The FAA told congressional lawmakers they have revoked access to the pilot notification system for contractors who were involved in the NOTAM failure.
At the time of the mishap, FAA discovered the problem with NOTAM in the overnight hours and tried to reboot the system. It was unable to fix the issue before the morning rush.
The situation was cleared up in the morning, but the issue led to cascading delays and increased pressure on Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to improve the air-travel industry.
Before the NOTMA chaos, Southwest Airlines had to cancel thousands of flights over the holiday period due to problems with its scheduling and staffing systems.
The airline reported an $800 million loss because of the chaos, and the Department of Transportation launched an inquiry into whether the airline scheduled flights it could not reasonably fulfill.
