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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.
Sure look at the photo : http://web.ukonline.co.uk/eric.price/humour2/AIRPO RT.jpg
Why even bring up CAPPSII, is has nothing to do with air control, only with passenger data.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Does that seem like flaimbait to anyone else? Computers crash all the time, granted steps can be taken to ensure redundancy, but this is nothing new. This problem has nothing to do with the CAPPS II system other than the fact that they are both computerized systems, I'm not trying to defend CAPPS II, I just don't think that it is any way related to this this tokyo airlines problem. Computers crash, it's a fact of life, the real question here, is why weren't there multiple redundancies in place for such a mission critical application.
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
Am I the only one wondering why there was no redundancy. As in effective. One would think something as important as airtraffic control should have several layers of complete redundancy. As in if a control tower has say a catastrophic failure there is another a.) civilian b.) military control center able to hand off instructions. which would include all flight information. including passengers, cargo flight log, flight plan everything.
Euhhh . . . . wasn't that Linus Thorvalds? =]
Veni, Vidi, Velcro!
Passenger listings, airline booking systems, and related software are NOT connected to the ATC network. Since CAPPS II looks at booking data, credit card info, and related data, it would not be connected to the ATC network.
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.
Anyone see the other news on this site?!
Police recover rock climber's body after fatal fall
Motorcyclist dies after being hit by a truck
61-year-old jobless man fatally abuses senile mother
Dad dies of shock after son's repeated beatings
Comic questioned over hitting woman in restaurant
Death row inmate dies in prison cell
Can someone in Japan please confirm that this is a freaky, awful day, and that Japan isn't normally this bad?
Although that last one is quite ironic.
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Your hot-standby mouse should have kicked in and taken over without you noticing.. ;)
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Read the article. It says that just the airline name and flightnumber tags printed beside the radar blips vanished. The radar worked just fine.
> 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?!?!
Read the article. The change was made early in the morning on a weekend. When would you suggest?
> Wouldn't you do a test run, install it on a backup system, or one that's not systems-critical?
The article (did you read it?) hints that might have been a networking problem when they integrated the military database with the civilian database. A backup system is a good first start, but isn't always the same as the production system. Network problems can't always be perfectly tested or simulated.
I think it's obviously Y2K related. Civilization as we know it should be coming to an end in a week or so.
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
"Computers are just no good," said one 51-year-old company manager leaving for Sapporo. "I'm sure they're helpful, but they're just too fragile." Uh, yeah, I also have a feeling they may be a little helpful. Good luck controlling 70 percent of all air traffic in Japan with abacii and the Everyday Memory Builder...
Loger Murdock: We have crearance Crarence.
Captain Oveur: Loger, Loger. What's our vector Victor?
Tower voice: Tower's ladio crearance, over!
Captain Oveur: That's Crarence Oveur! Oveur.
Tower voice: Loger.
Roger Murdock: Huh?
Tower voice: Loger, over.
Roger Murdock: Huh?
Captain Oveur: Huh?
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'
I've lived here for several years now, and the above stories really are an average selection. On a true freaky, awful day, you would see stories far worse.
Was it computer that failed some operation or lousy programmer who made a mistake in the program?
I am sick of people complaining abour "computer errors" when they are at fault.
... 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.
"Whose bright idea was it to do a "systems upgrade" while there were large, flying metal objects carrying many people still in the air?!?!"
Actually, there are planes in the air most hours of the day. There is no time when planes aren't flying.
The best time (when there are fewest planes) may be at night. But that's just the time when the people actually doing the upgrade are going to be half asleep.
"Wouldn't you do a test run, install it on a backup system, or one that's not systems-critical?"
I'm sure they did. But the live system is bound to be different in some small way
- maybe a different (more powerful) system, which might cause different timing issues;
- maybe a different disk configuration, perhaps with a file system running out of space (e.g. more online logs);
- maybe the live database (if any) is different to that on the backup system.
These things can easily go wrong. In my experience, it's vital to ensure you have a way of getting some sort of system operational if you do screw up. Maybe ensure a backup system is capable of running live first, then attempt the update of the live system, and if it goes wrong, you have a backup system capable of operating until you can correct the screw-up.
Computer related story about a programming error halting Air traffic control system in Japan is entered in a pre-posting queue to Slashdot.
DETAILS: Limited and not noteworthy.
REAL NEWSWORTHYNESS: Not really. No deaths reported.
DATELINE: SLASHDOT HQ
PREPOST WORD SEARCH: code runs check for Important items. - keyword search generate matches for two known hot item words [COMPUTER & JAPAN]
HENTAI AND GIANT ROBOT FACTOR?: n/a
CUTE BABE?: n/a
SEARCH FOR BIG NAMES- JOBS, ELLISON, GATES, TORVALDS, STALLMAN, CowboyNeal?: n/a
Microsoft Bashing Factor: High
PRIMARY ACTION TAKEN: Story authorizes posting of story to Slashdot
SECONDARY ACTION TAKEN: activate Inquisitors of the Holy Order of Linux, First Poster Squad IM'ed, new Sex story featuring Whicky the slashdot cat beta authorized.
STATUS REPORT: Status Quo Achieved.
RESOLUTION: Computer error found between keyboard and chair
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
At 7am Saturday, the error "caused the names of airlines and flight numbers to disappear from radar screens."
I'm guessing there was an article posted yesterday on Slashdot that linked directly to their system.
No, computers shouldnt crash. But they will eventualy fail, just like everything else will.
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...
If this was the 80's, I could say: "Their programmers are Samari trained, and if they don't work fast and accurate, they have to commit hari kari (disembowelment) in front of their peers.", and everybody would believe me. Guess I'll just have to make up shit about Islam instead.
Table-ized A.I.
Working in the software industry here in Japan for the last two years I have had my eyes opened to the true state of affairs. Most 'westerners' have an idealogical view of the high-tech world of Japan. This is far from reality. The fact is that software development here is at best poorly done, little design, short timelines (okay that one is universal), and lack of quality assurance. I can't say why this is the case, but shoddy products are in abundance. It may be trying to shove a relatively new industry into an old style organization, or the lack of individualism, I'm guessing at these. This story does not surprise me. All I know is I am looking forward to returning to the industry in Canada.
First, people need to understand that no Bad Things will happen if an ATC system goes offline while planes are under it's jurisdiction. ICAO member countries (and most nations for that matter) have strong procedural rules in place that keep planes separated without the help of radar. This is espcially true in the enroute case. (Area control centres handle overflight and enroute traffic. Eveyone is separated by at least 1000' vertical and 3 miles horizontal at all times. The altitude restrictions and clearances that each pilot receives are chosen specifically so that in the even of loss of communications, the pilot can continue to his "clearance limit" without any problem. Well, you ask, what happens when he gets to his clearance limit and still isn't communicating with air traffic control? They hold. This is all laid our quite clearly. These rules have been around since before RADAR because thats the way it was done.
Just take a look at the RADAR coverage map of Canada (one is visible at the link above). There are lots of places that don't even HAVE radar coverage.
The old tried and true clearance and time/speed based conflict resolutions works and works well.
Secondly, and more imporatantly, there really isn't any news in this article. It's scaremongering. This happens all the time. It's an inconvenience, but rarely a saftey concern.
For those who asked about it; yes, typically a new system is run in parallel with the legacy system for a period of time (sometimes 24 months) before it is used as the primary control. Notice that the old system is live and the new system is shadowing. That way, anomalies that are found do not impact any flights.
[*flame proof underwear on*]
Is it just me, or does the press dig around for 'news' in about as diligent a manner as Slashdot?
Redundancy started to suffer when the bean counters took over. Air Traffic Control is no longer an exercise in absolute safety but one of "risk management". This means that when the system designer says "I want a fully redundant hot standby system in a separate building powered from a different grid feed and on its own battery backup" the bean-counters say "you can have a warm standby (because we wouldn't want to have to pay for two software licenses) in a separate rack in the same computer room (have you looked at the cost of raised flooring lately?)". Instead of asking "what can we do to avoid a failure?" they tend to ask "how long will each failure last and how much will that cost us in lost revenue?"
If it had been open source, this problem would have never happened. With millions of eyeballs detailing the code, we'd have found and corrected this bug before it ever occurred. Whats more, if the flaw did get thru, the operator could have jumped in and fixed the problem real time.
OMG... man are you brainwashed. First, as impossible as it may seem (gasp), open source software has bugs in it too. Second, even if it were open source, what million eyes would be looking at the code? I bet there isn't any source in the OSS archives that a "million eyes" have looked through. Third, you assume that the operator is an a) programmer, and b) at all familiar with the code enough to debug it and understand just what in the hell the code is doing anyway. Keep repeating your mantras fan boy, may they always give you a warm tingly feeling as you say them.
Intelligence reports about the terrorist threat to the Hawaiian harbor bombed by the Japanese in World War II were sent to senior U.S. officials in the past two weeks and coincided with reports of the planning of a major attack by Osama bin Laden's terrorist group.
GERTZ: Terrorists aim at Pearl Harbor; Plan to hijack airliners, fly them into nuclear subs
I believe Juanita