WBZ-TV announced tonight that Logan Airport (Boston's international airport) is experiencing air traffic difficulties due to a computer glitch. No mention of Y2K was made. Flights are restricted to two incoming flights every 15 minutes. Delays are not being reflected on Arrivals displayed.

This incident bears checking out, to ascertain if Y2K is a contributing factor.

-- Jan Nickerson (Boston, MA) (JaNickrson@aol.com), January 03, 2000

Answers

It look as though the FAA won't be giving us a straight answer.

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 was corrected by about 10 p.m. The center used a backup computer system 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 2332EST

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Computer Problems Lead to Delays at New York City's 3 Airports New York, Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Computer problems in New England led to 75-minute delays at the three major New York City- area airports today, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.

International flights and domestic flights along the East Coast, particularly those into New England from John F. Kennedy International, LaGuardia and Newark International airports, were affected, said Sergeant Reinaldo Gonzalez at the Port Authority Police Headquarters in New Jersey.

``We think it was a computer in New Hampshire that had problems that led to the delays at all three of the New York-area airports,'' he said. ``Now, only JFK is affected. The delay there is down to 30 minutes.''

Transportation officials at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration couldn't be reached to comment. It's unclear whether the computer problem is tied to the Y2K bug.

Governments and companies worldwide spent an estimated $300 billion testing equipment and making sure computers wouldn't malfunction by mistaking 2000 for 1900. The 10 biggest U.S. airlines alone spent more than $610 million.

Jan/03/2000 23:08 For more stories from Bloomberg News, click here. (C) Copyright 1999 Bloomberg L.P.

-- Dona Clement (dkainc@aol.com), January 04, 2000.

Hi

It would be premature to say if this is y2k-related, they have problems like these all of the time. HOWEVER, the effect is EXACTLY what would happen if there were y2k-related issues. Here is a phrase to look for: "controllers reported problems in the STARS [or ARTS] system"

-- Bud Hamilton (budham@hotmail.com), January 04, 2000.

Hi

The above comment was in reference to the Boston situation. Re: the Chicago situation, hmmm, they said *power surges*. Let's follow that one, since under the Cowles scenario, these would increase over time.

-- Bud Hamilton (budham@hotmail.com), January 04, 2000.

Re: the Chicago situation - "MCI, which runs the system that failed, blames the outage on a power surge at an O'Hare generator." Why was the system running on a generator?

-- Halim Dunsky (halim@y2kcommunity.org), January 04, 2000.

Yahoo posts this news report (thanks to David Sunfellow NHNE for distributing this)

N.H. COMPUTER GLITCH DELAYS FLIGHTS Tuesday January 4 11:00 AM ET

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000104/us/plane_delays_4.html

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) - A computer malfunction at the air traffic control center for the Northeast delayed dozens of flights at airports from Washington to Boston. But don't blame Y2K.

The failure of one computer forced controllers to shut down the main computer at the Nashua center for nearly three hours Monday night, Jim Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said today.

The problem was not related to the Y2K computer bug, said Eliot Brenner, the FAA's assistant administrator for public affairs in Washington.

The center controls flights across a region from the Atlantic Ocean to western New York and from the Canadian border to south of New York's Long Island.

The center still could track airplanes and had a backup system to guide them to landings, Peters said. However, flights at Logan International Airport in Boston were delayed on the ground for up to 90 minutes and at airports in the New York area for up to 75 minutes, Peters said. Delays also extended to airports at Philadelphia and the Washington area, he said.

-- Jan Nickerson (JaNickrson@aol.com), January 04, 2000.

Hi

This is actually the Host system at the Center (my earlier post misread that the problem was in approach control, my error). In general, to say it was not related to y2k is very misleading, since that system was hurriedly put in over the last year in a mad dash for y2k. This is the classic problem of replace/refurbish which has particularly struck firms like Hershey. At the very minimum, it suggests that the new system isn't any better than the old, which failed frequently.

-- Bud Hamilton (budham@hotmail.com), January 04, 2000.