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British Airways $100M Outage Was Caused by Worker Pulling Wrong Plug: Times

A contractor doing maintenance work at a British Airways data center inadvertently switched off the power supply, knocking out the airline's computer systems.
Image: People wait with their luggage at the British Airways check in desks at Heathrow Terminal 5 in London
People wait with their luggage at the British Airways check-in desks at Heathrow Terminal 5 in London on May 28, 2017.Neil Hall / Reuters
/ Source: Reuters

A contractor doing maintenance work at a British Airways data center inadvertently switched off the power supply, knocking out the airline's computer systems and leaving 75,000 people stranded last weekend, the Times newspaper reported on Friday.

Quoting a BA source, the newspaper said the power supply unit that sparked the IT failure was working perfectly but was accidentally shut down by a worker. An investigation into the power outage is likely to focus on human error rather than any equipment failure, it said.

Related: BA Blames Power Surge for Global Outage

BA had to cancel all flights from London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports last Saturday. It blamed a power surge that knocked out its computer system, disrupting flight operations, call centers and its website.