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Software Upgrade Crashes UK Air Traffic Control System

Posted by michael on from the quality-is-priority-1 dept.

pitpe writes "Earlier today the computer system controlling most of the UK's airspace failed, after tests in preparation for an upgrade failed. The original failure occurred at the West Drayton centre, which is an old (70's) system, as opposed to the new system at Swanage, which has had its own problems. A system wide reboot to fix the system resulted in the entire system being taken down temporarily."

9 of 233 comments (clear)

  1. Software doesn't rust... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "which is an old (70's) system". As long as it's not 30-year-old hardware then the software should still be fine. Why does everyone think that simply because software was written in the past it is bad?

    1. Re:Software doesn't rust... by GoofyBoy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >Why does everyone think that simply because software was written in the past it is bad?

      What is implied is that its being pushed to its limits. e.g. it was designed for 100 flights a day, when today there are 1200 flights a day.

      Those small things which you could get away with before start to become factors in usability and stability.

      --
      The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
  2. So what? by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are redundant systems in place. Analog radar, humans with brains.

    At least there should be. Computers crash, break, have bugs, etc. They're a tool - a more efficient and convenient tool to be sure.

    But when they break, there are contingencies so that planes can still take off and land, and wont just fall out of the sky.

    This is also why Y2K was such a bunch of stupidity. We really aren't as reliant on computers as people think. We know they crash and are prepared to handle it when they do.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  3. Same in Ireland! by pixelbeat · · Score: 5, Informative

    Much the same thing happened last
    week in Dublin

  4. And the Wizard said: by the_twisted_pair · · Score: 5, Funny

    It appears you are trying to land a plane. Would you like to:

    [x] Allow Windows to detect new hardware ?
    [ ] Allow planes to circle in uncertainty ?

    [x] Show this window at all airports

  5. Re:More problems... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    A dutch friend of mine once remarked that she didn't understand the mentality of the British. "You" she said, "have an amazing tendency to run things into the ground and then get around to fixing them rather than spending money on continually maintaining them so they never fall apart."
    That's a pretty fair point. The trouble is, since 1977, politics has been obsessed with who can provide the biggest tax cuts, which has meant all the state funded / supported industries have gone to hell in a handcart.
    <rant>
    I blame Margaret fucking Thatcher, who let the hospitals fall apart and flogged off the viable bits of the infrastructure to her friends (at well below market value). [We're still feeling the effects of this on the railways, which the private sector has run into the ground] Corrupt old bitch.
  6. Re:Lucky in the US... by aldoman · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is 2 ATC centers in the UK - West Drayton which is for the 4 major London airports only (Heathrow, Standstead, Gatwick and London City). This is a 70s system and is due to be replaced by 2006. This is the one that crashed, but because a large percentage of UK air traffic is destined for London, then it caused the other one to go to a standstill.

    The other one at Swanage handles the ATC for everywhere else. This was replaced with a new system in 2002.

    But, by 2006 hopefully all ATC in the UK will be running on new systems.

    --
    IntechHosting - Free domain, 2GB, PHP, £4.95/$8.95
  7. Golden rules.. by rf0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Never just test software upgrades on Live systems

    Rus

    --
    Cheap UK and US VPS
  8. Re:What WAS the System that crashed? by orbitalia · · Score: 5, Informative
    Hi, I worked on exactly this system for 4 years.

    The hardware is an IBM 9020 family mainframe, the application is written in Jovial (one of , if not THE first algebraic language), and BAL assembler (for the monitor mostly). The monitor is the operating system so it effectively is a custom written operating system for this application.

    Although MVS is also used for testing. The I/O capabilities of the mainframe are superb which means it can handle 2000+ flights with only 14 Megs of RAM (if I remember rightly).

    I believe the NAS application came as a freebee from IBM when the UK purchased the hardware and was the same NAS (national airspace system) application used all over the US. It has been continously developed since then (no mean feat when you consider that all variables are global in Jovial, It uses holleriths instead of ascii, and you are limited to 5 or 6 characters per variable name). The hardware has also been upgraded several times over its lifetime.

    It doesn't often go down, last time was 2002 sometime, and you can tell how important it is because everyone screams when it does go down. The people I worked with are extremely dedicated to their job, but one cannot test a system like this for absolutely every eventuality. No doubt some patch was applied and some special case came up that caused a FLOP (functional loss of operation). It happens, Radar is usually unaffected, so the safety implications are not large, but flow is affected.

    The UK approach to handling NAS is much different to the US, the US tends to not touch the NAS software and develop external systems that enhance the usage of airspace, where as the UK tends to delve into NAS and improve things directly in NAS. Jovial is a very interesting language it has been used heavily by the US military and exists in such applications as Cruise missiles and many other aircraft and missile systems. Read about Jovial here if you are interested.

    I can't say too much about it for various NDA reasons (OSA) I think most of the above is in the public domain.

    HTH.