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Computer Error Grounds Japanese Flights
zephiros writes "Mainichi Daily News reports that a "computer glitch" in Tokyo air traffic control systems resulted in the cancellation of 203 flights this weekend. At 7am Saturday, the error "caused the names of airlines and flight numbers to disappear from radar screens." A Japan Times article suggests the problem may be related to upgrades on a system which exchanges flight plans with the Defense Agency. Makes one wonder about the integration and maintenance risks of systems like CAPPS II."
I've work quite a bit with risk maintenance. Most often situations like these increase the budget for disaster prevetion and other related expenses. This failure *should* make fewer failures in the future and generally a safer airport. But then again that all depends on how much passion they have for their job.
Maybe I should take a trip to Japan in a few months.
1) How the hell did the flights get DOWN once the radar died? It said they disappeared from radar, and you don't keep radar on the planes that are on the ground, so....?
2) Whose bright idea was it to do a "systems upgrade" while there were large, flying metal objects carrying many people still in the air?!?! Wouldn't you do a test run, install it on a backup system, or one that's not systems-critical?
This just makes no sense....someone explain it to me?
Out of curiousity, how does one go about testing a system like this? Do they test changes to the code in a live system? (not using the newer version, just looking at it along with the old one). Are there flight emulators that will feed fake data to the software which in turn displays what it is receiving? Do they do extensive testing between new systems that perform different functions yet interface as well? It seems to me a large part of the budget for these projects has to be testing.
If this was an error in the code, then how were they able to repair it in just 54 minutes? That's a pretty narrow window when it comes to rounding up the programmers, searching through the source, then repairing, testing, redistributing to the entire system, and rebooting the whole thing.
Kind of like how Hugh Jackman can hack into the DoD from a computer he's never touched before in Swordfish.
I'm tempted to think that this was much more human error than a bonefide "computer glitch". Maybe that 54 minutes was the time it took to call in their expert, have him look at the system, and declare "Why, you must have hit F11, which toggles the flight information. Just hit it again and it comes back."
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Am I the only one wondering why there was no redundancy.
Typically there are redundant systems as well as manual processes - in Sydney Australia there's even a redundant tower, which is used if the main tower stops working (e.g. major power problems).
... or at least upgrade as little as possible. No matter how much planning and testing is done, upgrades can and will screw things up. I'm always reading about , "luckily, you can recompile the new kernel every week or so", or, "a new version is coming out so I have to upgrade" and I'm thinking... yeah, at home, maybe, if you have nothing better to do. But this is an extreme example of why companies that are worth their salt don't upgrade at the drop of a hat.
Even if CAPPS is only connected to ticketing and passenger information, a bug could result in a pretty nasty transportation snarl. Suppose airlines are unable to issue boarding passes for an hour, or an unusually large number of people were flagged for screening.
For any of these total-information-awareness type systems, one has to ask "what happens when some part of the patchwork breaks?" Even the most diehard "I have nothing to hide from my government" type understands that multi-hour flight delays are bad.
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GERTZ: Terrorists aim at Pearl Harbor; Plan to hijack airliners, fly them into nuclear subs
I believe Juanita