{"id":1827444,"date":"2023-01-29T06:50:15","date_gmt":"2023-01-29T11:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1827444"},"modified":"2023-01-29T06:52:49","modified_gmt":"2023-01-29T11:52:49","slug":"faa-identifies-contractor-involved-in-outage-that-grounded-over-11000-planes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/faa-identifies-contractor-involved-in-outage-that-grounded-over-11000-planes\/","title":{"rendered":"FAA Identifies Contractor Involved in Outage That Grounded Over 11,000 Planes"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffaa-identifies-contractor-involved-in-outage-that-grounded-over-11000-planes%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1827444&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47-->\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/flights-january-1200x643-1.jpeg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\"   style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-federal-aviation-administration\">Federal Aviation Administration<\/a> (FAA) The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-contractor\">contractor<\/a> involved in the outage of a safety bulletin system that caused a stop in passenger air travel nationwide.<\/p>\n<p>The agency announced on Jan. 26, that\u00a0it would directly ban contract personnel involved in the incident from accessing its buildings and systems during the investigation, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/technology\/us-faa-some-aviation-computer-system-users-experiencing-slower-response-times-2023-01-25\/\">reported Reuters<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Federal investigators identified Bethesda-based Spatial Front as the contractor behind the mass grounding of over 11,000 flights that occurred on Jan. 11.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement came one day after the\u00a0U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) released a new report over its investigation into the termination of hundreds of Southwest Airlines flights during the holidays that left more than 1 million passengers stranded at airports across the country.<\/p>\n<h2>Transportation Department and the FAA Investigate Two Successive Aviation Incidents<\/h2>\n<p>Having two major, high-profile, incidents in less than a month has become an embarrassment for the Biden administration, as the airline industry tries to deal with a post-pandemic-era travel boom.<\/p>\n<p>The FAA\u00a0released a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.faa.gov\/newsroom\/faa-notam-statement\">preliminary report<\/a> on Jan. 19 that blamed contract workers for allegedly causing an outage on its Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, after they inadvertently deleted crucial system data and caused the first nationwide halt to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-air-traffic\">air traffic<\/a>\u00a0since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n<p>Government aviation investigators stated that the deletion of data occurred when the contractors were attempting \u201cto correct synchronization between the live primary database and a backup database.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The NOTAM system distributes warnings about potential safety hazards, such as closed runways, that affect active flights.<\/p>\n<p>All flight crews are required to consult with the FAA system before taking off.<\/p>\n<p>The company reportedly had more than 50 staff members at the FAA offices working on over 90 \u201cmission critical\u201d systems, including the NOTAM system, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/transportation\/2023\/01\/26\/southwest-airlines-faa-flights\/\">The Washington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>House Committee To Hold Hearings Over The Recent Groundings<\/h2>\n<p>Members of Congress have sworn that they will launch a thorough investigation into the latest flight disruptions, as they begin work on a major package of legislation tied to FAA funding for 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen briefed the House\u00a0Transportation and Infrastructure Committee about the status of the investigation on Jan. 26, but gave few new details about its findings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was just purely a screwup,\u201d Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), Chairman of the House committee, told reporters after emerging from the meeting with Nolen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text__text__1FZLe text__dark-grey__3Ml43 text__regular__2N1Xr text__large__nEccO body__full_width__ekUdw body__large_body__FV5_X article-body__element__2p5pI\">When asked if he thought a similar incident would likely happen again, the congressman replied, \u201cI can\u2019t say that. It\u2019s the FAA. It\u2019s a government-run operation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text__text__1FZLe text__dark-grey__3Ml43 text__regular__2N1Xr text__large__nEccO body__full_width__ekUdw body__large_body__FV5_X article-body__element__2p5pI\">Graves promised to hold a February 7 committee hearing to review recent aviation safety issues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t understand how trained people can make the deletion error,\u201d\u00a0said Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the committee.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe investigation will hopefully explain how someone zigged instead of zagged,\u201d he commented.<\/p>\n<p>The FAA told lawmakers they would send further details by letter on Jan. 28, according to Larsen.<\/p>\n<h2>Authorities Still Reviewing Southwest\u2019s Operations Debacle<\/h2>\n<p>Meanwhile, the FAA is still trying to investigate the\u00a0Southwest Airline\u2019s debacle that happened in late December and caused more than 16,700 flights to be delayed over an 11-day span when the airline\u2019s systems broke down during a wave of bad weather.<\/p>\n<p>The agency is looking at whether executives at Southwest misled customers by selling tickets for flights, knowing full well that they would face major delays.<\/p>\n<p>The airline\u2019s CEO, Bob Jordan, said that the wave of last-minute flight cancellations during the holidays, had overwhelmed their aging electronic schedule and staffing systems, leading to the operational meltdown.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe disrupted thousands and thousands of customers and really made a mess for our employees and customers, and I can\u2019t apologize enough for that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the end of the day, that kind of disruption cannot happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The airline was fully staffed for the holidays and there were no indications their systems would fail, said Andrew Watterson, Southwest\u2019s chief commercial officer, on a Jan. 26 earnings call.<\/p>\n<p>Southwest told investors on the earnings call that the holiday disaster would cost the company $800 million in related expenses, leading to a net loss of\u00a0$220 million in the final quarter of 2022 alone.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0contrast, rivals like American Airlines, JetBlue Airways, and Alaska Airlines, all reported a profit in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n<p>Southwest executives admitted that\u00a0the company did not expect to earn a profit this quarter because of the December cancellations, and is expected to lose over $350 million according to their estimates.<\/p>\n<h2>Southwest Promises Software Improvements While FAA Plans To Release System Upgrade<\/h2>\n<p>Jordan promised that the carrier would spend $1.3 billion to upgrade its systems for 2023 to avoid a repeat of the grounding controversy.<\/p>\n<p>He said that the airline had hired an outside firm to review the incident, and that a report should be completed within weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Jordan also promised that the carrier would fully cooperate with lawmakers, who will hold hearings on the holiday cancellations along with the DOT, while the FAA conducts its full review.<\/p>\n<p>The latest incident in January was one of the largest examples of a major shutdown of a government-operated IT system caused by a damaged database, raising questions about the future rollout of the FAA\u2019s Next Generation Air Transportation System.<\/p>\n<p>The FAA said the operational software upgrade will increase the safety, efficiency, and resilience of the National Airspace System and is expected to be in service by 2030.<\/p>\n<p><em>Reuters contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) The contractor involved in the outage of a safety bulletin system that caused a stop in passenger air travel nationwide. The agency announced on Jan. 26, that\u00a0it would directly ban contract personnel involved in the incident from accessing its buildings and systems during the investigation, reported Reuters. Federal investigators identified &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1827447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[16852,16853,14154,12165,7056,7445,14367,12356],"class_list":["post-1827444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-16852","tag-contractor","tag-faa","tag-grounded","tag-identifies","tag-involved","tag-outage","tag-planes"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1827444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1827447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1827444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1827444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1827444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}