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Apple Maps Flaw Sends Drivers Across Airport Runway

Posted by Unknown on from the wrong-turn dept.

solareagle writes "The BBC reports that an Alaskan airport says it has had to place barricades across one of its taxiways after an Apple Maps flaw resulted in iPhone users driving across a runway. The airport said it had complained to the phone-maker through the local attorney general's office. 'We asked them to disable the map for Fairbanks until they could correct it, thinking it would be better to have nothing show up than to take the chance that one more person would do this,' Melissa Osborn, chief of operations at the airport, told the Alaska Dispatch newspaper. The airport said it had been told the problem would be fixed by Wednesday. However the BBC still experienced the issue when it tested the app, asking for directions to the site from a property to the east of the airport. By contrast the Google Maps app provided a different, longer route which takes drivers to the property's car park."

3 of 311 comments (clear)

  1. The real question is by guruevi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How did the driver get it onto the airport taxiways? I live pretty close to an airport and the taxiways are all very barricaded, you can't just drive onto an airport without someone noticing.

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  2. Re: calendar check. by neonKow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Airport's fault. No one should be able to drive their car right onto the runway, no matter what GPS or voice in their heads is telling them. Fire whoever runs this airport because they're a moron for not putting a fence up

    I think it's pretty reasonable to think that a MILE of warning signs that you might get hit by a freaking plane is enough deterant.

    And before you keep going on about physical security, remember that stupid is always going to find a way.

    From TFA:

    "They had to enter the airport property via a motion-activated gate, and afterwards there are many signs, lights and painted markings, first warning that aircraft may share the road and then that drivers should not be there at all.

    "They needed to drive over a mile with all this before reaching the runway. But the drivers disregarded all that because they were following the directions given on their iPhones."

    These aren't drunk frat boys pulling some shenaigans in the middle of the night. These are fully competent, licensed drivers who turned off their own brains and replaced them with iPhones. This is NOT the airport's fault. It's called personal responsibility.

  3. Re: calendar check. by BasilBrush · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Right. So the TSA are x-raying and groping passengers, meanwhile the gates are open for anyone who wants to go joy-riding on the runway. Seems inconsistent.