PA--More on the Radar Glitch at Phila. Airport

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Radar glitch causes scare at Phila. airport

Three times Friday night, controllers lost crucial flight information. Problems have happened before, and the FAA is investigating.

Problems with the radar tracking system at the Philadelphia Airport lasted only 12 minutes. (Eric Mencher / Inqurier Staff Photographer)

By Maria Panaritis INQUIRER STAFF WRITER March 13, 2000

A radar tracking system that helps air traffic controllers identify incoming and departing aircraft malfunctioned Friday night at Philadelphia International Airport, causing brief moments of panic in the control tower but no immediate danger in the sky, union and Federal Aviation Administration officials said yesterday.

The computer problems wiped the identifying labels of planes off radar screens, meaning air traffic controllers were unable to match the blips on their screens with such vital information as flight number, carrier, altitude, air speed and type of aircraft, said Danny Mullin, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association of Philadelphia.

The disruptions affected about 30 planes being tracked on eight radar scopes, and each lasted about three minutes, he said. The first malfunction occurred at 8:03 p.m., the second a short time later and the final one at 8:21 p.m., Mullin said.

At no time were aircraft or passengers in immediate danger of collision, officials said. A cause was not yet known.

"We're still investigating," said FAA spokeswoman Alison Duquette. "However, our controllers were able to go to a backup system so that there was no immediate safety problem."

Mullin called an FAA manager at home yesterday. "He said he's not sure what happened," Mullin said. "It's not like we have a handle on what's going on."

Friday's radar problem was at least the third in recent months at the FAA control tower, Mullin said. Recurring malfunctions with the nearly 40-year-old radar system prompted U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) to tour the control tower in June and demand that the government provide new traffic equipment to Philadelphia.

Problems Friday with the radar tracking system lasted only 12 minutes, according to the FAA's Duquette. There were about 30 departure delays and additional arrival delays, she said.

At no time did any two airplanes come within 1,000 feet of each other vertically or three miles horizontally - distances deemed safe by the government, Mullin said. But the computer malfunctions caused "a couple of minutes of panic" inside the control tower, he said.

"It shouldn't happen at all," he said. "I believe this is the third time in less than a year that it's happened."

The problems, according to Mullin, began at 8:03 p.m., when all of the identifying tags that appear next to radar blips vanished.

Air traffic controllers remained in full radio contact with pilots of planes in local air space, but they were suddenly unable to figure out which blip on the radar screen corresponded with which incoming and outgoing airplane, he said.

They telephoned towers in Atlantic City, New York and Washington, asking controllers there to keep all additional incoming planes beyond the reach of Philadelphia radar systems until the problem was resolved, Mullin said.

The computer tag system mysteriously began operating again a few minutes later. But all of the identifying information was still missing, so Philadelphia controllers radioed pilots one by one, asking each to push a button in the cockpit that would cause their radar blip to glow momentarily bright back in the control tower, Mullin said.

In this way, controllers were able to manually identify each aircraft and re-enter the information into the radar system, Mullin said.

However, all information was lost yet again a few minutes later, and for the third and final time about 8:21 p.m. Each time controllers had to piece together information about the planes surrounding them, he said.

Mullin likened the malfunction to a computer "rebooting" itself, so that "any information that was in there at the time was just lost."

Airport spokesman Mark Pesce said oversight of all air traffic control problems rested with the FAA, and that airport officials are "fully confident" in the agency.

"It's an ongoing issue," Pesce said. "It happened a few months ago." He did not elaborate about the incidents.

On May 5, air traffic controllers experienced a power and communications failure that disrupted contact with aircraft. On May 17, a computer processor scrambled radar scope readings.

In the wake of those incidents, Specter, a member of the Appropriations subcommittee on transportation, requested FAA reports documenting what happened.

On a June 4 tour of the control tower, Specter asked the FAA to rank Philadelphia higher on the list of cities set to receive an automated program to replace the computer systems and workstations now in use. At last count, Philadelphia was 41st on the list.

Efforts to reach Specter last night were unsuccessful.

)2000 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/2000/Mar/13/front_page/PAIRPORT13.htm



-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), March 13, 2000

Answers

Note: Update to initial report by Carl Jenkins, and many thanks to Carl for his fine posting...

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002lRk

Dee

-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), March 13, 2000.


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