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FAA Computer Glitch Causes Widespread Airline Delays
seven of five writes with this excerpt from an Associated Press report: "A problem with the FAA system that collects airlines' flight plans caused widespread flight cancellations and delays nationwide Thursday. It was the second time in 15 months that a glitch in the flight plan system caused delays. The FAA said in a statement that it is having a problem processing flight plan information. 'We are investigating the cause of the problem,' the agency said. 'We are processing flight plans manually and expect some delays. We have radar coverage and communications with planes.'"
Given that the FAA is responsible for the lives of thousands of people who travel by air every day, not to mention cargo planes which represent billions of dollars in economic activity, I'd be extremely alarmed if they were constantly switching to the latest and greatest technology without testing each and every line of code in the entire software stack, up to and including the bare metal. Change is slow in organizations like that because it has to be. Improper testing can easily lead to lost lives, or at the very least huge delays like these ones that can cost millions in lost productivity.
I don't know a whole lot about in-flight software, but I do know the FAA itself heavily regulates it. There are different "levels" of flight software and hardware, with varying degrees of documentation and testing required for each. In-flight navigation software is obviously the most critical, and the level of documentation and testing they do for that is insane. Back when I was working on my capstone project in college, I got to see a little bit of how Honeywell tests their displays, and it is orders of magnitude more thorough than what I've seen in corporate software wherein money actually changes hands. They even had to create their own proprietary operation system in order to pass muster with the FAA.
I'm not sure about where the FAA's flight plan software falls in, but I'm guessing that since it's not safety critical, and only an operational risk, it probably is fairly solid, but obviously not as solid as the safety-critical software.
I do think it's too soon to blame this on MS, though. We don't even know whether this was caused by a third party vendor, which vendors they use for the particular piece where the error occurred, or if this is even anybody else's fault but their own. I wouldn't be surprised if someone gets fired over this, though.
FTA: "The FAA said at that time the source of the computer software malfunction was a "packet switch" that "failed due to a database mismatch."
We all know how large out of touch behemoths sometimes structure their IT. By 'packet switch' they mean 'guy who couriers hardcopy flight plans' and by 'database mistmatch' they mean their dewey-decimal-system was mixed-up by some jokesters.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
I don't think MSSQL runs on any other OS??
They are comfortable running systems on ancient mainframes running ULTRA.
I would be comfortable doing the same thing.
Why do people shit on mainframes? They may cost a lot of money and time, but they're orders of magnitude more dependable than any other server solution that exists.
Yes, that includes the "cloud".
Even if it's fixed, there will still be delays for a while. There are probably tons of flights that are still awaiting clearance and the requests are being dealt with as quickly as safely possible. Meanwhile, a normal load of requests is still coming in, and those go into queue as well.
Trouble with things like flight planning is that they are, well, planning. If they go down, the manual process can't keep up with the load, and a queue develops. Once the system comes back up, it's gotta munge through the queue and get all the planes that have been waiting for clearance in the air.
And the skies can only handle so much traffic - you can't have infinite numbers of planes in the sky at once. So there will be a period where takeoffs will be done pretty close together, up to the point where the flying lanes are at max safe capacity. Max safe capacity is higher than normal capacity, but it'll still take a while to get all those delayed flights going, and the flights that are just now at this moment getting ready to go will be delayed as a result.
The net result of this is the same as a construction zone on a highway - you have a large stretch of highway with traffic backed up in it (planes waiting to take off) followed by a stretch of highway that almost empty. If you pull the barriers, it will still take a while for the empty stretch of highway to fill up with cars again, and the cars at the back of the line still have a long wait ahead before they can get up to speed.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Under their control, 87,000 flights a day cross the skies of the US. Despite incredible crowding at and in the airspace surrounding a large number of airports, collisions are one-in-billions events. The vast majority depart and arrive without undue delay. (And anyone expecting no delay in such a dynamic system with so many variable is smoking some good stuff.)
In this incident, a problem was detected, backup procedures implemented, the problem was fixed, and full functionality was restored - all in a matter of hours without halting the system.
I'd be the first to admit that there are a lot of badly broken government programs - but in this case, you're just blowing smoke.
Yea, these are the guys (the feds) I want building cars, taking over health care...thanks god they are not building the planes. I'm just trying to think one government run organization that works as well as any private one. Any idea?
This morning I was woken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Dept of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the national oceanographic and atmospheric administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built and launched by the national aeronautics and space administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Dept. of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the food and drug administration.
At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the national institute of standards and technology and the US naval observatory, I get into my national highway traffic safety administration approved automobile and set out to work on roads built by the local, state and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality determined by the environmental protection agency, using legal tender issued by the federal reserve bank. On the way out the door, I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US postal service and drop the kids off at the public school.
After work, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to a house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and the fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it's valuables thanks to the local police department.
I then log onto the internet which was developed by the defense advanced research projects administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.