The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency worker who erroneously sent an alert warning of an incoming ballistic missile misheard a recorded message that was part of a drill and believed the threat was real.
The Federal Communications Commission released a preliminary report into the events of the morning of Jan. 13, when a ballistic missile alert was sent to more than 1 million people through the emergency alert system in Hawaii.
The incident began when a midnight shift supervisor started a drill at 8:05 a.m. by placing a call to warning officers on the day shift pretending to the U.S. Pacific Command. During the call, a recorded message played that began by stating, “exercise, exercise, exercise.”
The recording then stated, “this is not a drill,” language that would typically be used during a live ballistic missile alert. According to the FCC, the script for the recording diverged from the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency’s standard operating procedure for the drill.
The message ended again with the words, “exercise, exercise, exercise.”
The recording was heard by three warning officers who were on duty and listening on speakerphone, including the one who sent the ballistic missile alert.
The day shift warning officer who sent the erroneous alert told the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency in a written statement he did not hear the words “exercise, exercise, exercise,” but only heard “this is not a drill.”
“According to the written statement, this day shift warning officer therefore believed that the missile threat was real,” James Wiley, an attorney adviser for the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, told commissioners Tuesday.
Two minutes after the drill was initiated, the day shift warning officer used software to send the live alert to more than 1 million people warning of an incoming ballistic missile.
Wiley said other warning officers who heard the recorded message knew there was no real missile threat, but rather was the start of a drill.
The FCC hasn’t been able to speak with the employee who sent the false alert, he said.
“Because we’ve not been able to interview the day shift warning officer who transmitted the false alert, we’re not in a position to fully evaluate the credibility of their assertion that they believed there was an actual missile threat and intentionally sent the live alert (as opposed to believing that it was a drill and accidentally sending out the live alert),” Wiley said.
After the message of an incoming ballistic missile was received on cellphones, including that of the worker who sent the alert, it took 38 minutes for the agency to send another alert stating there was no threat to the state.
The agency did, however, update its social media accounts 12 minutes after the alert was sent to reflect there was no missile threat to Hawaii.
The worker who sent the alert has been reassigned to a job without access to the system.
It was initially believed the employee mistakenly initiated the alert by selecting the wrong option in a drop-down menu.
