REVEALED: Why Hawaii official sparked global panic with false missile alert

The probe contradicted the previous official explanation that the January 13 incident was as a result of the employee hitting the wrong button on a drop-down menu.

An alert circulated on the US state’s mobile phone networks triggered mass panic when it announced: “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.”

To make matters worse, the error was not corrected for 38 minutes sparking panic as people fled their homes and sent messages to their loved ones believing a missile attack was imminent. 

In a preliminary report, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said today that the state employee who sent out the alert “claimed to believe … that this was a real emergency, not a drill.”

Wireless emergency alerts warning of danger are usually sent out by state and local officials through a partnership between the FCC, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the wireless industry.

The report states the incident began when a night-shift supervisor at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA) decided to test incoming day-shift workers with a spontaneous drill.

However, while the day-shift supervisor was apparently aware of the upcoming test, he believed it was only aimed at night-shift workers, and as a result was not prepared for it.

Following standard procedure, the night-shift supervisor posing as US Pacific Command played a message to workers warning them of the threat. 

This message included the phrase “Exercise, exercise, exercise” but also the phrase “This is not a drill”.

The worker who triggered the alarm, who has not been identified, heard the second phrase, but did not hear the first, the report said, adding that this person was the only one who had not realised it was a drill.

When the alert hit cellphones across Hawaii, people began frantically trying to determine how long they might have to reach safety, with some seeking shelter in their homes, and what others described as “mass hysteria” on the roads.

It was not until 26 minutes into the crisis that officials settled on a proper way to inform the public about the all-clear, and workers began drafting a correction. It took another 14 minutes after that for the correction to be distributed.

Ajit Pai, chairman of the FCC, said the lack of a contingency plan for such an incident represented a critical failure on the part of HI-EMA.

He said: “Every state and local government that originates alerts needs to learn from these mistakes.

“Each should make sure they have adequate safeguards in place … The public needs to be able to trust that when the government issues an alert it is indeed a credible alert.”

Governor David Ige, who has called “a terrifying day when our worst nightmares appeared to become a reality,” was scheduled to speak about the findings of an internal state investigation of the incident later today.