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FAA Pushes Air Traffic Control Systems Into Service
An anonymous reader points us to this AP story about the FAA forcing new air traffic control systems into service, over the objections of technicians and air traffic controllers. The Transportation Department's Inspector General notes that many critical bugs remain unfixed. We reviewed a book that discussed the lessons to be learned from software engineering projects; and we had a recent story about Great Britain having all sorts of problems with their new air traffic control software.
Don't they remember the disaster when the ATC shut down a few years back? It's not like this thing is a web browser.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Not much specifics. Basically says the union hates it and the FAA and Raytheon say it's OK. It lists a few problems, but doesn't say if it could be the result of user error. We all know how users always say the system crashed when it's really their mistake. I'm not saying it's good to go for production, but it could be another time when the union is afraid that it will automate too well and result in people's jobs being lost.
Except when by web browser crashes, it doesn't slam me into the ground in a firey mass of twisted, molten metal.
Seriously, I thought design philosophies such as the CMM level 5 (used on the space shuttle design), should prevent things like this from happening. I'm sure it's safe to fly, but stories like this don't inspire me to full confidence.
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
It's the classic disaster scenario: the designers/programmers know it's hosed, the management forces them to ship anyway.
You Have Been Warned.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Only problem is that the problems aren't OS related, but application related. And the article doesn't say what system they run it on. Could already be Linux. Or it could be another UNIX, or NT/2000 or a mainframe on the backend.
I don't know a whole lot about the way that this system interacts with navigation in planes themselves, but I don't believe air traffic controllers guided those terrorist airplanes into the towers. So I don't see that your "blacker side" has any reasonable chance of occurring.
-Sou|cuttr
People who are versed in such matters, including FAA technicians and ATC's, have expressed strong concerns that this system is ready.
They aren't serious enough to (a.) refuse to follow the order to install it, or (b.) refuse to report to work if it is installed. So, if there's ever a disaster directly caused by the known flaws in this system, they're part of the same conspiracy. Whoever made this decision should have done so with the understanding that if they're wrong, they might be held accountable for more than just negligence.
But, people want that paycheck more than they want to protect human lives. So pilots won't be refusing to fly, ATC's won't be halting takeoffs, and FAA managers won't be yelling fire.
If these people really cared, we'd be seeing empty skies like Sept 12th.
So either the systems aren't all that bad, or the people who have the power to stop the madness immediately are chickenshits.
Let's start in Syracuse. Why didn't these "FAA technicians" put their money where their mouth is, and throw their wooden shoes into the machinery? Because they didn't, they should be the first people to answer for any accident that comes from this flawed system. They capitualted, didn't they?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
...or if it has more or less than existing systems (and workflows).
It's: "Is there a net decrease in aircraft safety during movements?"
If not, then it's not necessarily an issue.
These are just minor bugs, teething problems. The good folks at ATC should be able to provide work-arounds without any worries.
Don't let it stop you flying! We've gotta support our aviation industry. God bless it.
The problem with STARS is they have to introduce a whole new way of doing everything. I saw a neat discovery channel thing on it and they showed the simulated testing. (It failed certain parts of the testing by the way.)
Here's my gripe. The air traffic control system has been sucking the big one since the 80s (or even before that.) Old technology layered with even older technology. Every other year dateline or 60 minutes does a story on how much it all sucks. Alright, so what's the solution?
Well, according to the contracting some new whiz bang solution that is the end all of be all. So where are we, a couple billion down the hole for the a POS.
What needed to happen is not a total whiz bang solution. It needed to start with a system that emulated everything that the current system did using current technology. Something modular (so you could add new features later on) and something that could scale to meet larger needs. Oh, and something that could have been rolled a good ten years ago.
But noooo, that's too simple, and doesn't put a couple billion into the contractors pocket. Of course the ass clowns in congress are just as much to blame as they approved this.
I'll try not to stray offtopic here.
In the past, I've flown alot for business. I enjoy flying, actually, even in some of the cramped up economy spaces.
Before 9/11, I wasn't overly concerned about our planes running into things. The skyes are awfully big up there, and cities, aside from the obvious ones like NY and LA, are pretty easy to miss or avoid with all the land between them.
And as I think about it, the one thing that takes away my fears about a plane running into something, is that guy in the very front seat of the bus. Y'see, I know several pilots, and none of them are foolish enough to believe the ATC, when they're looking out the front of the plane and see a building comming at them quickly.
These are men and women who have, (proportedly), been highly trained and qualified to get us from point A to point B, safely. And I know most, if hopefully not all of them are smart enough to make good decisions when what they see doesn't match what the ATC is telling them.
In the same vein, there are men and women, who hopefully have good training and good instincts about being ATC's, that when a bug comes up, they're smarter than it is, and will make decisions that avoid the loss of life and property.
Sometimes, alas, you must trust the User to do the right thing. And in this case, we get Trained Users to do the job. Let them do their job.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Although I wouldn't want to minimize the impact of problems at our radar control facilities, it should be noted that there are procedures for dealing with this sort of thing.
Traffic flow procedures, and FAR's allow for all kinds of flexibility here. Controllers can stack airplanes up in holding patterns while they sort out priorities. Traffic that the primary airports couldn't handle could be sent to reliever airports. Enroute traffic could be sent to alternate airports, etc. In an emergency, the FARs even allow a pilot to deviate from the regs to the extent necessary to safely complete the flight. In other words, if it was an emergency, the Captain could break his flight plan and head for the nearest suitable runway.
The dangerous time is the time between the failure, and the full blown utilization of alternate methods. Even this, however, is helped by separation standards, standard arrival and departure routes, TCAS, etc.
In other words, they won't just fall out of the sky. If I were an airline Captain, and I found myself in a situation where the destination airport's radar was out, and I felt nervous about the safety of that airport's traffic environment, I'd start by asking for an ammended clearance to some alternate destination. If that didn't work, I might just declare an emergency and divert myself.
Contrary to what you see in Die Hard movies, the system is pretty flexible, and the people who use it are intelligent and capable.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
dont' worry I've seen it before and laughed then as well. I'm sorry but they have a few tools to aid an ATC system not be an ATC system.
... so yeah an open source indever is a joke.
I've been doing ATC coding for a few years so I have a pretty good idea what goes into ATC systems of this size and I'm sorry but its hard enough to nail down requirements with 10 coders with excelent domain knowledge and 10 years experience. Its not something you can just throw your hat in the ring every great once in a while, its a job