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Boeing 787 "Blacklisted" From Some Air Traffic Control Services (flightglobal.com)

Posted by timothy on from the flight-oh-oh-nine-please-repeat-your-position dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A software glitch causes the Boeing 787 to report its position incorrectly, which has led Australia and Canada to 'blacklist' the aircraft from using ADB-S and until it is resolved the latest Boeing is treated as an aircraft without ADS-B capabilities. The practical implication is that the aircraft is not allowed to use reduced separation procedures and an maximum altitude limit of 29,000 feet was also considered. Boeing denies that the bug causes a safety hazard because existing services (radar) still allow safe operation. A bugfix is coming to restore ADS-B functionality.

1 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's not really a blacklist then, is it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's graceful degradation.

    No, a graceful degradation would be the plane recognizing it's not operating correctly and falling back to the older service. This is a case where the plan is actually trying to use the newer/better service, failing to do so correctly, and it not aware that it is failing to do so. The humans involved are noticing the error and have had the blacklist the plan from the newer system and manually force a fallback to the old system.

    I mean seriously, the second sentence in TFA even says:
    Boeing says a service bulletin with instructions for operators to correct the position reporting error will be released “imminently"