GOP Rep. Loudermilk: Flight Stoppage ‘A Problem of Management’ Focusing on Wokeness over Needed System Redundancy 

On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) said that the failure of the NOTAM system that led to flights being grounded was a management failure and a lack of needed redundancy in the system and that an Air Force commander who was in charge of such a debacle would have been expected to step down. Loudermilk also argued that there was too much time spent on a “woke agenda” like renaming NOTAM instead of safety.

Loudermilk stated, “If you have a corrupt database, a reboot sometimes will fix it. But if it’s corrupt, that won’t fix it. That’s why you have a redundant system, not just a backup system. But when it’s a mission-critical system, you have a redundant system, a system that is identical to your primary, so when you do have to reboot, you just kick in your redundant system. And now I’m understanding that their backup system failed as well. There’s a problem of management here. Now, if this happened when I was in the Air Force, that commander would have already [been] expected to have issued his resignation because of a failure to complete the mission. And now we find out this Notice to Airmen — which I relied on as a pilot, as well — they renamed it, Notice to Air Missions out of sensitivity. Look, if you’re spending that much time with your woke agenda, you’re not focusing on the safety and the security of the passengers or the pilots.”

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