US flights disruption caused by procedural error: FAA

As air travel in the US returned to normal after a major disruption in airline operations, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Thursday said that the computer outage was caused by a procedural error related to a data file.

The FAA said its preliminary analysis “determined that a data file was damaged by personnel who failed to follow procedures. The system is functioning properly.”

The massive airway disruption that occurred on Wednesday led to the first national grounding of domestic traffic since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.