Fair use, etc.

Computer Malfunction Delays Flights

.c The Associated Press

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) - A computer malfunction at the Federal Aviation Administration's Boston Center here delayed flights at airports in Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York Monday night.

The main computer at the air traffic control center went down around 7 p.m., said Jim Peters, spokesman for the FAA in New England. He said the problem corrected by about 10 p.m. The center used a backup computer system took over during the outage.

``As a result of the outage we incurred extensive delays throughout the Northeast, both for flights arriving and departing,'' he said.

Peters said FAA officials would not know what caused the malfunction until Tuesday.

``Without knowing what has caused the problem, it would be premature to speculate,'' he said. ``It may turn out to be something other than Y2K.''

In Washington, Eliot Brenner, FAA assistant administrator for public affairs, said: ``The problems in Boston are not Y2K related and they are over now.''

The Boston Center controls flights over more than 160,000 square miles of air space from the Atlantic Ocean to western New York and from the Canadian border to south of Long Island in New York.

Departures and arrivals at Logan International Airport in Boston were delayed by at least 30 minutes because of the malfunction, according to airport officials.

Departing flights at both Kennedy International Airport in New York City and Newark International Airport in New Jersey were delayed by up to 75 minutes, said Sgt. Reinaldo Gonzalez of the Port Authority police. Shorter delays were experienced at La Guardia Airport in New York, Gonzalez said. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey runs all three airports.

In Chicago, radar displays used to direct traffic into O'Hare International Airport went down for about two minutes Monday afternoon, causing minor delays.

The FAA said air traffic controllers never lost audio contact with the five planes in the air and the five on the ground at O'Hare at the time.

MCI, which runs the system that failed, blames the outage on a power surge at an O'Hare generator. FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said the problem was not Y2K-related, and planes were never in jeopardy.

AP-NY-01-03-00 2322EST

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without prior written authority of The Associated Press.

-- Duke1983 (Duke1983@aol.com), January 03, 2000

Answers

What a super example of the upward obfuscation in PR statements! This article states that Jim Peters, spokesperson for the FAA in New England (and closer to the source of the problem), said officials would not know what caused the malfunction until tomorrow.

Then we have the Washington, D.C. "FAA assistant administrator for public affairs" saying that it was NOT a Y2K problem. Those Washington guys must have a crystal ball...

Um hmmm...

-- Disconnect (watching@wondering.com), January 03, 2000.

It probably was a plane that hit a pole...

-- (not@now.com), January 03, 2000.

"It probably was a plane that hit a pole..."

LOL!

-- PA Engineer (PA Engineer@longtimelurker.com), January 03, 2000.

Yea, I just love it. "We don't know what it was, but IT WASN'T Y2K."

Any bets on how many times we hear this over the next few weeks? Heck, how many times have we heard it over the past few days?

Tick... Tock... <:00=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), January 04, 2000.

FAA people are for the most part bunch of yahoos, who if not occupied with keyboard gymnastics would be throwing rocks at the kids at the local mental hospital form the safe side of the barbed wire fence.

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), January 04, 2000.

"...blames the outage on a surge at an O'Hare generator." WHY IS O'HARE RUNNING ON GENERATOR???

-- casey (casey@__-.com), January 04, 2000.

Another take on the same story---------------------------------------- Monday January 3 8:06 PM ET Brief Outages Interrupt Chicago Air Traffic CHICAGO (Reuters) - A power surge briefly knocked out radar screens at an air traffic control facility serving Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on Monday, forcing two short postponements of takeoffs and landings. The initial two-minute radar outage at the Elgin, Illinois, facility, which monitors flights within a 10- to 40-mile radius of O'Hare, left controllers staring at blank screens and without the ability to contact pilots by radio, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Tony Molinaro said.

Fortunately, the outage occurred during a slow mid-afternoon traffic period and delayed just five arriving flights and five others scheduled to take off, he said.

MCI, which operates the digitized link that failed between O'Hare and the Elgin facility, discovered the outage was caused by a power surge in a generator serving the facility as well as controllers at O'Hare itself.

An hour later, the FAA ordered a planned air traffic stoppage to switch the system to a different generator, which took nine minutes to complete, Molinaro said.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000103/ts/transport_chicago_1.html

-- casey (casey@__-.com), January 04, 2000.

I caught this on the local news last night, an off beat channel verses the top five which had no mention of any problems, anywhere?

The on site reporter indicated that there were problems at both NY airports and Logan (Boston) and according to the reporter it sounded pretty bad. Now, I waited for the next round of reports from the top 5 stations, no mention of it?

This morning the weather report accross the nation indicated airport delays at several airports throughout the country all weather related except out west and that's because of volume.

Not sure what to expect from the media anymore, but the more I watch the more apparent it appears to just avoid bad news around anything computer related and only report if it's good.

One more thing to watch out for, if interest rates go higher to deal with inflation, and we experience cascading, even slight problems, that's not going to look good for markets, but who knows. Just my opinion.

-- LALA (LaLALAND@aol.com), January 04, 2000.