Los Angeles — Failure to perform a routine maintenance check caused the shutdown of an air traffic communications system serving a large swath of the West, resulting in several close calls in the skies, the FAA and a union official said Wednesday.
In at least five cases, aircraft in the sky passed dangerously close to each other Tuesday night after the shutdown knocked out radio contact between pilots and air traffic controllers, the union official said.
Two flights "were almost near-mid-air collisions," said Hamid Ghaffari, local president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it was looking into five instances in which planes apparently got too close to each other during the communications blackout.
In a statement, the agency said radio contact failed but radar coverage remained fully operational and aircraft were safely handed off to other air traffic control facilities.
The center hit by the blackout controls airspace for a vast region that encompasses California, Arizona, Nevada and parts of Utah. The shutdown caused a ripple effect throughout the country as planes bound for the Los Angeles region were held on the ground for about three hours.
"A required 30-day maintenance check on the primary radio and voice communications system was not performed," the agency said. "This system turns off if this check is not performed."
It said a backup system also failed because it "was not configured properly to ensure its availability in the event of the primary system's failure."
The problems could have been avoided if strict FAA procedures had been followed, the agency said.
Three workers filed injury claims, saying they were traumatized by seeing flights veer toward one another on radar without being able to do anything, he said.
The shutdown caused a ripple effect throughout the country as planes bound for the Los Angeles region were held on the ground for about three hours.
Well, I'm glad there was only a ripple effect.
What I want to know is why a vital system like this would shut down because of the failure to perform a routine 30 day maintenance check? Imagine if your car was designed to suddenly stop running without warning if you didn't check the oil and fluids! Might as well shut down the planes in midair because some bureaucrat on the ground forgot to check the software.
And take the backup -- "not configured properly to ensure its availability in the event of the primary system's failure." I know bureaucratic doublespeak when I see it, and if you parse that statement, the second part -- "to ensure its availability in the event of the primary system's failure" -- is completely redundant, and not an explanation at all. By definition, a backup system is supposed to be available in the event of a primary system's failure!
Why can't the bastards admit that they screwed up by not configuring the damned thing?
I am sorry to sound so angry about this, but millions of Americans have to travel on planes, and they rely on the people who are supposed to do things like routine maintenance checks, and installing a backup system.
If they can't do things like that, then how on earth can they be relied on to direct the huge amounts of air traffic in the skies -- to say nothing of protecting airline safety in the event of a real emergency?
Nor am I put at ease by seeing those who should have done something instead whining about "trauma":
Three workers filed injury claims, saying they were traumatized by seeing flights veer toward one another on radar without being able to do anything, he said.
My god, Mr. Ghaffari! The public was endangered by the bureaucratic stupidity of your union employees and all you have to say is that they were "traumatized?"
Forgive me, but I think the American people are the ones who should be feeling the trauma here.
It could have been much worse.
(Which is probably what it would take to make the bastards upgrade their damned backup.....)
posted by Eric on 09.22.04 at 11:54 AM
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Comments
As a former FAA technician certified in Radar and Communication systems, I will agree with you that what happened could easily be explained in plain English, like this:
Someone in the technical workforce failed to conduct scheduled maintenace on the primary comm system. It is programmed to transfer to the backup system in this case, which it did. The backup system failed to function because is was improperly configured. As a result, there was a communications failure.
As far as the traumatic "injuries", those are Air Traffic Controllers who know a good scam when they see one. The have a strong union and pretty much get whatever they want. Thus the claims.
After watching the way the FAA runs their maintenance program from the inside for many years, I routinely thank my lucky stars that systems that are built today are so reliable. Cost cutting, down-sizing, and dumbing down of the technical workforce at the behest of those in the Clinton administration is the main reason for this failure and more are on the way, no doubt.
The other contrbuting factor to the FAA's inability to keep their systems up is what we used to call the disaster mentality. All major congressional allocations to the FAA have followed major airline disasters. So the agency rolls along, living with problems and safety issues until disaster strikes. Then they tell congress that in order to improve safety, they need more money. In other words, they are reactive - not proactive.
One thing I will say about them, though. Given all their shortcomings and poor management, flying in American air space is just about the safest thing you can do. Driving to the grocery store or just walking across the street is far more dangerous.
Scaramonga · September 22, 2004 05:11 PM
This is indeed a troubling article.
A few years ago, I was on a plane coming into New York that had to make an emergency landing at another airport because they were not able to get their landing "cleared" at LaGuardia, which has a notoriously antiquated and manual way of scheduling incoming flights. I seem to remember reading something later about how they were doing it with strips of paper with flight numbers that they would tack up on a "board" and dump in a "bucket" when the flight actually landed.
The weather was really bad during this particular landing and LaGuardia only had one runway open, but what happened was inexcusable. We circled New York literally for hours until the captain of the airplane basically said that we did not have enough fuel to continue and that we'd have to make an emergency landing at the other airport. The terrifying part about this was that we had already had one "false alarm" landing and had been circling at ever lower altitudes across Long Island, with the flight crew telling us that there was not enough fuel to regain altitude.
The airline had a psych team waiting for us when we finally landed to handle any traumatized customers, but most passengers were simply too disgusted to acknowledge them as we left the plane.
I'm sure that there is more to this story than just controller problems at LaGuardia. There was probably an error in judgment on the part of the captain, miscommunication, etc. But, from my perspective, I'd like a better/safer system where this kind of stuff does not happen.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
As a former FAA technician certified in Radar and Communication systems, I will agree with you that what happened could easily be explained in plain English, like this:
Someone in the technical workforce failed to conduct scheduled maintenace on the primary comm system. It is programmed to transfer to the backup system in this case, which it did. The backup system failed to function because is was improperly configured. As a result, there was a communications failure.
As far as the traumatic "injuries", those are Air Traffic Controllers who know a good scam when they see one. The have a strong union and pretty much get whatever they want. Thus the claims.
After watching the way the FAA runs their maintenance program from the inside for many years, I routinely thank my lucky stars that systems that are built today are so reliable. Cost cutting, down-sizing, and dumbing down of the technical workforce at the behest of those in the Clinton administration is the main reason for this failure and more are on the way, no doubt.
The other contrbuting factor to the FAA's inability to keep their systems up is what we used to call the disaster mentality. All major congressional allocations to the FAA have followed major airline disasters. So the agency rolls along, living with problems and safety issues until disaster strikes. Then they tell congress that in order to improve safety, they need more money. In other words, they are reactive - not proactive.
One thing I will say about them, though. Given all their shortcomings and poor management, flying in American air space is just about the safest thing you can do. Driving to the grocery store or just walking across the street is far more dangerous.