I hope the part they are planning to finish by 2005 isn't affected by Y2K issues!

R.

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Minneapolis Radar Problem Latest in a String This Year 6/24/99 Author: Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Power outages, faulty computers and software glitches have caused at least six serious air traffic control outages from New York to Minneapolis to Seattle since January.

In some cases, passengers have been stranded overnight at airports, as happened to 100 travelers in Minneapolis earlier this week.

On another occasion, in Philadelphia in May, controllers lost radio communication with six planes, leaving one to say, "Helpless is a pretty good description.''

The government says a $13 billion upgrade of the nation's air traffic control system now under way should reduce problems.

The work includes replacing work stations at en route centers, which control airplanes during the cruise portion of their flight. The Federal Aviation Administration also is replacing radar scopes and upgrading software at centers controlling planes within 50 miles of an airport. The overhaul will not be completed until 2005 at the earliest.

"The new computer systems and work stations will be more reliable and easier to maintain and upgrade than the current systems,'' said FAA spokesman William Shumann.

After an outage in Chicago on May 5, the union that maintains the FAA's equipment had a bleaker assessment.

"This outage highlights the fact that the systems are deteriorating,'' said Tom Demske, a regional vice president for the Professional Airways Systems Specialists.

In Minneapolis on Tuesday, radar scopes continued to show the position of an airplane, but they did not show the normal accompanying data, such as an aircraft's flight number and its airspeed.

Controllers responded by cutting the number of flights landing at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport from 60 per hour to as few as 28. That caused the delay or cancellation of more than 100 flights.

Shumann said an investigation was under way, but preliminary information indicated there may have been a problem with connectors in the radar system as workers moved equipment from a smaller control room into a new, larger one.

On May 17, a faulty computer processor caused the control tower at Philadelphia International Airport to lose part of its jet-tracking data up to a dozen times. That caused a temporary halt to incoming and outgoing flights.

On May 6, computer problems at the air traffic control center in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., on Long Island caused delays at the airports in New York, Newark, N.J., and Philadelphia.

A day earlier, the Philadelphia tower lost radio contact with six planes in the middle of the night after a human error during a test of a new generator. A backup didn't turn on as planned.

Also on May 5, United Airlines had to cancel 25 percent of its afternoon flights out of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport after software the FAA had installed at its regional air traffic control center in Elgin, Ill., started to display only partial data.

The agency had to revert to older software that was reliable but not certified to handle the Year 2000 computer glitch.

The year started on an ominous note, when a power outage at the FAA's regional center in Auburn, Wash., on Jan. 15 disrupted air travel throughout the Pacific Northwest and delayed flights for about 8,000 passengers.

Once again, a backup generator did not work as planned.

Randy Schwitz, executive vice president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union representing controllers, said the problems highlight the existing system's Achilles heel.

"The system is real susceptible to outside interference, power outages, traffic from other radio frequencies,'' Schwitz said.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), June 24, 1999

Answers

Paging Master Hoffmeister, Master Hoffmeister front and center please. You have been quite vocal on behalf of the FAA. May we please have your input here.

Many thanks in advance.

Your Pal, Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), June 24, 1999.

Roland,

I don't see how the press made the connection at all. Some of these problems may not have been caused by the FAA upgrades for Y2K, but this report doesn't make the link for any of them.

-- Dog Gone (layinglow@rollover.now), June 24, 1999.

The fact that they were all mentioned in the same article is a start. Regardless of the "official reason" for the failures, if I were Joe 6-Pack, I would be thinking that safety may be a wee bit of an issue to keep an eye on. It's called heightened awareness.

Of course, I need to "self medicate" to get on a plane, Y2K or not!

R.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), June 24, 1999.

From "International Monitoring", which apparently is "a consultancy based in London [which] assesses the technology infrastructure of countries, the efficiency of the Y2K fixes and estimates of the lateness of certain fixes. These analyses are then used to calculate dollar damages and probable Y2K scenarios": Average global air passenger delay to be 7 days due to Y2K

Planes will not fall out of the sky, but logistics issues on the ground are likely to cause delays.

June 24, 1999 --

The 30 busiest passenger airports are located in countries that are behind in Y2K preparations and fixes, which could delay average air passenger travel by 7 days according to a London specialist consultancy...

As with all press releases, we need to take this with a grain of salt, but at least this recognizes that there may indeed be Y2K impacts on travel. Note the new version of "Planes will not fall out of the sky..." Now it's "...but logistics issues on the ground are likely to cause delays."

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), June 24, 1999.

MAC--

Wouldn't want to be at an airport that had passengers waiting for 7 days to *catch out*. They will probably have to come up with some kind of "terminal rage" laws, huh?

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), June 24, 1999.

Michael: Luggage litigation?

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 24, 1999.

I have not seen Herr Hoff post since the infamous sewage spill occurred. Maybe some pollys know when to quit. (Whereas others, like Paul Davis, just keep digging their hole deeper and deeper....)

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), June 24, 1999.

Doge Gone,

The article make a link in saying:

"The agency had to revert to older software that was reliable but not certified to handle the Year 2000 computer glitch."

It isn't a weak link either.

The system in use which one can conclude was Y2K comlpliant was NOT RELIABLE and was PULLED! They reverted to an older system. Hmm. Can't do that for much longer can they?

Pitty the programmers.

Father

-- Thomas G. Hale (hale.tg@att.net), June 25, 1999.