Air traffic controllers were forced to use their personal cell phones to reroute hundreds of flights Tuesday after the Federal Aviation Administration’s Memphis Center lost radar and telephone service for more than two hours, snarling air traffic in the middle of the nation.
The malfunction, which occurred inside a telephone company’s switching office, made it impossible for air controllers at FAA’s Memphis Center to communicate normally with adjoining centers to hand off control of flights, Bergen said.
In addition, three of nine long-range radar systems were lost, causing the FAA to temporarily ground traffic within a 250-mile radius of the center, affecting flights in seven states, Bergen said.
At least Homeland Security wasn’t affected.
Are these folks still useing the 386’s with NO BACKUP?? NO UPS systems?? OFF site transistions??
GOD, Im glad I dont fly..
“At least Homeland Security wasn’t affected.”
That’s right. Those idiots still sucked wind.
#1 If you read even the part of TFA that was posted above you will see.
“The malfunction, which occurred inside a telephone company’s switching office,”
The failure wasn’t with FAA owned equipment. Also, please note that aircraft didn’t start falling from the sky. Aircraft are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves when this sort of thing happens.
The “using their on cell phones” probably entailed the supervisor calling over the ATC facility or facilities that they have letters of agreement with and telling them they were down.
Hmmm, the problem was in a telephone switching office. Maybe the FAA isn’t paying enough for their bandwidth. Could be a net neutrality issue.
At least today we have cell phones for those situations in which things don’t work pretty well.
Imagine when the systems were less reliable and stable and they didn’t have cell phones to replace communications platforms!
The switching station in Memphis is run by AT&T. Why am I not surprised at that!!!
I thought you were suppose to keep your cell phones turned off during the flight because it interferes with the navigation equipment….
Now find an arab that could point to Memphis on a map and you’d have something.
Memphis Center basically obtains radar feeds from radar sites throughout its area of responsibility. All these radar feds are fed to Memphis Center via microwave or a standalone T-1 connection. Unfortunately the FAA does contract these T-1 lines from the local telco.
The back up to not having radar is to revert to non-radar procedures (using time instead of miles).
It is not uncommon for a “Center” to lose radar, even intentionally (i.e. maintenance). This is generally transparent to the casual passenger. It sucks if a terminal ATC facility looses radar (i.e. New York Approach, Atlanta Approach, etc…) This will certainly result in delays and the planes fly much closer in these environments.
#8
“Now find an arab that could point to Memphis on a map and you’d have something.”
But first find an American who can point to Memphis on map.
3,
IF you note the same sentence, you will see they are using OFF SITE services INSTED of their OWN… Kinda strange isnt it..
9..
NOW thats an answer…
But wouldnt it be nice to have a remote backup to the system?
To use while maintenance and repairs are being done…AND not depend on remote services controled by corps.
“…The malfunction, which occurred inside a telephone company’s switching office…”
You mean to tell me that the FAA relies for air trafic control on the same phone system I use to order pizza and for phone sex?
Why on earth are they using the public phone network for something so crucial? Why don’t they have their own secure system?
12. Winston: It is a special ‘urgent needs only’ network that is reserved exclusively for air traffic control, pizza, sex and, in some states, ordering cabs to go get you more beer.
#13 Ben, why does the government tie up our “Urgent Needs Only” phone lines with trivial things like air traffic control?
I was delayed for 3hr in BWA because of this.
So, the hard lines broke, but the cell towers worked? i guess they were not patched to the same crappy switch. Sounds like finger pointing to where the problem was. maybe someone was doing a windows update.
That’s pretty scary. ummm “Can you hear me now??”