Slashdot Mirror
Comair System Crashes; Passengers Stranded
Broerman writes "30,000 people have had their flights cancelled by Comair this weekend thanks to a computer system shutdown. It appears that due to weather and other problems that flights began to be cancelled on Thursday and the backlog choked the system. 1,100 flights have been cancelled so far, including all flights through 12/26. Does anyone know what platform their system was based on? What kind of system just totally crashes? The official statement is that 'There was a cumulative effect with the canceled flights and trying to get crew assigned that caused the system to be overwhelmed.' It seems highly improbable that a system would crash because it had too many reservations. The system should only be able to hold as many reservations as it has flights/seats. It would seem that it's more likely that the system was overloaded with use and that caused a meltdown. When you add in the problems experienced by US Airways, this hasn't been a Merry Christmas for many."
Anybody know what they were running? I'd like to see this flamewar get started as soon as possible.
Linking to their home page will surely help the situation..
The janitor pulled out the plug for the mainframe and used it to drive is floor polisher..
Simon.
That doesn't need answering.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
They obviously didn't take mcbride's "license or we will have you shut down" threats seriously enough.
...slashdotted reservations?
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
30,000 passengers? Getting dangerously close to an integer overflow there.
Gosh, looks lke idiot programmer assumed a 256 length crew relocation array was big enuf fer anybuddy!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Somewhere deep in the code is a comment that says:
// I don't need to check for this condition because
// my asshole manager Steve Johnson says it'll
// never happen
{friggin' slash - When I say plain old text, I mean plain old text!}
http://home.hccnet.nl/jaap.kranenburg/fun/xx/image s/fun20020415.jpg
Wow. I would hate to be the one sitting there when that happened.
... wing
There's some...thing on the
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
You know, I have my OWN reservations about flying on an airline when they have no backups and can't keep their computers from crashing. Whats to keep their planes in the air?
The last thing I want to hear at 30k feet is that my current flight has been cancelled...
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
The Bernoulli Principle. And I don't think computers crashing are going to affect it. This isn't the Matrix, after all.
I used to work with a guy who at one time was an HP3000 operator back when those things were as big as your average washer/dryer combo. His shop had about a dozen of these things, and one night he and a buddy were playing frizbee with the circular write-protect rings that were used on the reel-to-reel tape drives.
Sure enough, his buddy whipped one at his head, and as he ducked out of the way, he fell back and by accident hit the power switch located on the back of one of the HP3000's. In an instant, all the ticket terminals for one airline (I can't recall which one) at O'Hare airport went down, prompting a frantic call from VP's wondering what disaster had struck. So who knows what could have happened this time around...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
without mentioning names I have also worked on several airline systems on a contract basis. Two years ago I was asked to look at a problem with flight ops and was shown a 486 DX2/80 running Novel 2.11. I was told to just patch it till they could look at replacing the system. I did and a few months ago I was in the same office and was asked to look at the flight ops server that was "burping". They had upgraded to a P2-400 and still runnig Novel 2.11.
I was told this was a major upgrade. Some things never change.
So lets think this one through for a second. The people who work there say the system that failled runs on AIX and that its the application thats gone whoopsie. So they obviously must be lying since everyone knows that the minute an application is ported to AIX all the bugs fall out of it.
Of course with this type of thinking there is no way that reputations are ever going to change since every computer error is attributed to Windows even if it has nothing to do with the issue.
I suspect that the HR advert is for a completely unrelated job.
I also would hazzard a guess that the real problem at the place now is not the system anymore. The system is probably back up but they are now having to deal with planes that are in the wrong places and crews that have no flying hours left because of decisions that were taken manually while the system was down.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/