Ajit Pai, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has a message for Hawaii: Fix your systems.

More importantly, if an inaccurate message is ever sent out over Hawaii's Emergency Alert System, it's critical that a correction be sent in as little time as possible. That didn't quite happen for yesterday's false emergency notice of a ballistic missile launch, blasted in all-caps to cell phones across Hawaii with the ominous tagline, "This is not a drill."

In some ways, that message was correct: It was not a drill. It was a mistake. According to Vern Miyagi, administrator for Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency, a wrong button was somehow pressed during a shift-change drill. The erroneous message sent as a result wasn't corrected for 38 minutes, leading to a not-so-insignificant amount of panic among those who received the original emergency alert.

According to a statement from Pai, the FCC is opening a full investigation into the incident.

"We have been in close contact with federal and state officials, gathering the facts about how this false alert was issued. Based on the information we have collected so far, it appears that the government of Hawaii did not have reasonable safeguards or process controls in place to prevent the transmission of a false alert," his statement reads.

"Moving forward, we will focus on what steps need to be taken to prevent a similar incident from happening again. Federal, state, and local officials throughout the country need to work together to identify any vulnerabilities to false alerts and do what's necessary to fix them. We also must ensure that corrections are issued immediately in the event that a false alert does go out."

Though many have asked why Hawaii's emergency alert system seemingly allows critical messages to be sent out with just the press of a button, BBC News notes that a confirmation message also appeared after the initial button-press. For whatever reason—likely a second button-press—the emergency alert was accepted, which led to the ballistic missile warning going out to cell phones, TV stations, and radio stations.

Spoke w @JRosenworcel from FCC; we are working together on developing best practices for notification and warning. Starting the process of drafting legislation (if necessary.) Considering oversight hearings, and planning briefings with state govt during next recess. More later. — Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) January 14, 2018

As NPR reports, Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency has now implemented a new safeguard for all test and missile launch notifications—two people must sign off before they're sent out. Additionally, a new feature has been added to the system that can automatically cancel messages within seconds of being sent.

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