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Top officials resign after false missile alert in Hawaii

January 31, 2018

Two top officials in Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency have resigned after a false missile alert sent the US state into mass hysteria. The employee who sent the alert has also been fired.

https://p.dw.com/p/2rnZt
Hawaii Emergency Management Agency officials work at the department's command center in Honolulu
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/C. Jones

The top two officials at Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency resigned following a false missile alert blunder earlier this month, state authorities said on Tuesday.

Their resignations came the same day the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revealed that the employee who pushed out the alert thought an actual attack was imminent. This revelation contradicts previous explanations from Hawaiian officials, who claimed an employee pressed the wrong button on a drop-down menu.

A false alert that read "BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL" caused a statewide panic in Hawaii earlier this month. The alert came amid heightened tensions between Pyongyang and Washington regarding the testing of ballistic missiles in North Korea.

Read more: Hawaii's Pornhub missile alert, or pleasuring yourself 'til the end of the world

A screen capture from the Twitter account of Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) shows a missile warning for Hawaii in this image taken from social media.
The false ballistic missile alert caused widespread panicImage: Reuters

'Exercise' gone wrong

The emergency management worker, whose name was not disclosed by the FCC, was fired last Friday. The employee has confused real-life events and drills in the past, the FCC said in a report. His poor performance had been documented for more than a decade, and other employees of the team said they were not comfortable working with him.

The worker heard a recorded message that began by saying "exercise" three times, a standard script for a drill, the FCC said. The recording then used language that is typically used for a real threat, including the words "this is not a drill," before ending by saying "exercise" three more times.

Read more: Japan public TV sends false North Korean missile alert

No procedures were in place for the worker to double-check with a colleague or get a supervisor's approval before sending the alert out to cellphones, TV and radio stations across Hawaii, the FCC said.

The employee was directed to send a cancel message once the false alert was sent, but instead "just sat there and didn't respond," according to an internal state investigation into the incident. Another employee had to take over the computer and send the correction because the worker "seemed confused."

Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency has already taken steps to avoid such a situation in the future, said the FCC, including requiring more supervision of drills and alert and test-alert transmissions as well as creating a correction template for false alerts. The agency has also stopped ballistic missile defense drills until its own investigation is finished.

dv/aw (AP, Reuters)