MANILA — Heads must roll for the New Year's Day air traffic fiasco, which saw more than 65,000 passengers affected throughout the country, a senator said Tuesday.

The Senate Committee on Public Services is set to investigate the aviation mess on Thursday, January 12.

"I would want to find out first what really happened, if it's command responsibility, if it's CAAP (Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines) or whatever agency is really remiss or found negligent then some heads really had to roll," Sen. JV Ejercito told ANC's "Headstart".

• Poe: CAAP 'almost 100% responsible' for New Year's Day aviation mess

The fiasco, which forced nearly 300 flights to be canceled, delayed or diverted, can never happen again, he stressed.

"In the aviation industry, there's no room for error because this... can be catastrophic," added Ejercito.

"The air traffic management system that's in charge of communication, navigation and surveillance has to be working 100 percent all the time because it concerns air traffic safety and also national security."

Asked if the new transportation chief should be held answerable to the incident, he said: "It's also unfair to put the blame already on the new DOTr (Department of Transportation) Secretary Jaime Bautista because he just also assumed."

"With that, I really would want to get more information as to who really is responsible."

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Aviation authorities detected a "technical issue" on the morning of January 1 involving the air traffic management center at Manila's domestic and international airport.

The outage hit as many people began returning to the capital for work and school after the Christmas and New Year break.

Bautista has said the air traffic management center, which controls inbound and outbound flights, "went down" due to a power outage that resulted in the loss of communication, radio, radar and internet.

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— With a report from Agence France-Presse