FAA computer glitches causing significant flight delays

It's not clear what the exact problem is, but every major airport in the country is currently experiencing flight delays because of an FAA computer problem at a facility south of Atlanta. All that's being said is that the system that processes flight plans is having troubles, but that all flights currently in the air are fine and should land safely. Given that a single FAA computer failure has caused over 17,000 passengers to be stranded in the past, we're not too optimistic that these delays won't get worse and worse -- but then, nothing about air travel really inspires optimism lately, does it?

Update: All better now. Too bad air travel is still generally a dismal nightmare.

[Jason @ Aug 26th 2008 4:50PM]

I remember when flying used to be fun. TSA ruined that shit.

[Larry Sharp @ Aug 27th 2008 7:41AM]

Atlanta is experiencing some nasty storms/tornadoes at the moment. I just heard my first official "live" tornado siren a half hour ago.

Hopefully, they have all those flight plans backed up on a TRS-80 (based on the picture, that would seem appropriate).

[avester @ Aug 26th 2008 5:00PM]

I think that it was someone crashing into couple towers somewhere in the USA.

[Matt @ Aug 26th 2008 5:48PM]

I hate TSA as much as the next guy but I don't think they have anything to do with these delays.....

[Jason @ Aug 26th 2008 6:09PM]

@avester


Yeah, TSA will stop that from happening again. I lost count of how many Rhodes scholars they had at the last checkpoint.

[Mycroft @ Aug 26th 2008 6:10PM]

TSA=Thousands Standing Around

In five years the average flyer will not be permitted to take luggage - or clothes, on flights. Once you arrive at the airport, you will have to strip naked under the watchful eye of TSA personel, have a cavity search, and then step into a cardboard box which will be filled with packing peanuts and sealed up. You will have to pay $100 for the TSA approved box and peanuts. If you want a snorkel, you will be charged $325. Once you are sealed up, you will be placed on the luggage (now passenger) conveyor to be stacked in the airplane You will be routed through up to three different cities and sorted during your flight as a security precaution. You will not be told which cities as that could be a sercurity risk, but you will have to pay a 9-11 security fee for each city up to an additional $195 (excluding your departure and destination city) to fund the additional TSA security personal that will, of course, be needed. Once you have arrived at your final destination and have arrived at (the baggage claim carosel) passenger drop-off, a loud speaker announcement will instuct you how to break yourself out of your box. Your clothes can be mailed seperately to your destination if they can fit into a quart sized zip lock bag for an additional fee of $275. No metal, liquids, plastics, hemp, paper, or rayon will be permitted to be shipped. You could also choose to buy clothes at your destination airport in the TSA approved gift shop (everything comes with the I [heart] TSA logo) for $1100. The later will be a popular option since the mailed clothes take a minmum of 3 weeks to reach your destination - or apporximately 1 week after you arrive.

Fist class, of course, will remain unchanged. Movie stars and Senators can't be expected to be stuffed into a box.

[Ekauq @ Aug 26th 2008 4:52PM]

no wonder it's having problems...just look how old it is

/sarcasm

[ScOObyDoo @ Aug 26th 2008 4:55PM]

Not far from the truth. The machines used for the FAA NADIN system were built in 1980, and are still being used...

[avester @ Aug 26th 2008 5:01PM]

Upgrading working hardware from the 80's to the modern ones, just to get to know mister Bluescreen and ms. Kernel Panic.

[Chris Are @ Aug 26th 2008 5:51PM]

Thanks for that "/sarcasm" reminder. Though I'll admit, I've had someone reply something really ignorant to me that might necessitate a reminder like that.

Also, I'm really glad this is happening today because I just flew home from Chicago to Denver yesterday. I considered getting a hot dog and asking for ketchup on it, just to piss off some Chicago hot dog snob, but I wanted the Chipotle-rip off instead.

Just thought I'd mention all that. :-)

[stefan @ Aug 26th 2008 6:21PM]

it's widely claimed that parts of sky traffic control systems have program cores from the 60s running in emulators which in turn again run in emulators on machines from the 80s.
Don't know if it's true but I certainly believe that no IT-Contractor would take the risk of such a software project. Imagine the cost after several days of downtime or the occasional "lost plane".

[drathos @ Aug 26th 2008 7:28PM]

Harris Corporation has (had?) an air traffic control system in LA that broke down a few years ago because a flaw in Windows required that it be rebooted every 49 days. Instead of a sensible solution, Harris' solution was a *manual* reboot every 30 days. Someone forgot once and the whole system went down.

[Tom @ Aug 27th 2008 2:45PM]

Actually, that picture isn't far from the truth. I was taking a course at the FAA MMAC in Oklahoma City about 10 years ago, and got to take a tour of the Air Traffic Control tower which included their computer room. The main computer for the RADAR system was a 60's era UNIVAC computer, but they had made an upgrade at one point: it recorded all the RADAR information for a week on a 10 MB hard drive with removable platters. The drive was the size of a dishwasher.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Aug 27th 2008 6:13PM]

I have heard from pilots and people working in the FAA that many control towers still rely on vacuum tube base computers that pre-date the birth of most of the people reading or writing this blog.

[BigD145 @ Aug 26th 2008 4:57PM]

Does that mean a single plane flying into their building in Atlanta would stop all flights? I smell a distinct lack of security.

[Griff @ Aug 26th 2008 5:23PM]

You know, that is a very good point.

[ben @ Aug 26th 2008 4:57PM]

Haha! I am talking to someone on IRC who just said that their flight was delayed. He also says that there is a lady who has been talking about sweatpants for ten minutes on her phone. Yes, I sent him a link for a cell jammer.

[Pumping_Iron @ Aug 26th 2008 5:07PM]

Cell jammer....can u plz send it to me or a download link PLEASE ! :P

[ben @ Aug 26th 2008 8:00PM]

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.13233

Don't be a bad boy!

[Pumping_Iron @ Aug 27th 2008 5:21AM]

@ ben

Thanks, again ! :)

[Fred @ Aug 26th 2008 5:01PM]

I just figured it was John Cusak and Billy Bob Thornton fighting all the time.

[Manuel @ Aug 26th 2008 5:09PM]

i wonder if it has any relation to Verizon being down in California?

[Mightyram @ Aug 26th 2008 5:10PM]

Actually a communications problem between Denver and Atlanta... Now Atlanta is having to handle the full load.

[BratPAQ @ Aug 26th 2008 5:20PM]

i had a programmer friend was, crying "there is a plane missing, i have to find it" only to find out later that the database she was maintaining is short of 1 airplane, and she had to find out what happened to the data.

[Bassir @ Aug 26th 2008 5:21PM]

I hate the world "glitch" so much.

[phanbouy @ Aug 26th 2008 6:04PM]

well we fixed the glitch, so you won't be receiving a paycheck anymore

[stefan @ Aug 26th 2008 6:24PM]

bug /'bag'/ n : The son of a glitch.

[Minilap @ Aug 26th 2008 5:34PM]

That a great picture. where can I see more pics like that?

[D.Peters @ Aug 26th 2008 5:47PM]

Try Redmond

[grodaag @ Aug 26th 2008 5:39PM]

"should" ???

[CraigJ @ Aug 26th 2008 5:44PM]

Literally Epic Fail.

[phanbouy @ Aug 26th 2008 6:56PM]

ORLY?

did FAA put on plate mail and carry swords on an epic quest to slay trolls and fail?

[Mr. Rogers @ Aug 26th 2008 5:44PM]

hmmm. that computer looks just like mine, my computer is running windows 1.0

[wickedpheonix @ Aug 26th 2008 7:47PM]

The computers they run are so old I'm not even sure than they run DOS.

[Wwhat @ Aug 26th 2008 10:29PM]

Well seriously you want critical computers to run MS-DOS or Windows? I'd expect custom software/OS or unix or bsd etcetera, not windows.
And if you run assembler on a an 8-bit CPU it can still give the best hardware available with the latest windows installed a run for its money I bet.

[Brewster @ Aug 26th 2008 5:48PM]

Are you sure that the FAA is still using a [ Digital Equipment Corporation VAX/VMS 11/780 ] as depicted in the picture?

[Rick @ Aug 26th 2008 6:41PM]

yes it appears their HP3000 is down and they had to move on to "legacy" equipment.

he he and of course he.

[BigTeebo @ Aug 26th 2008 6:05PM]

Well, how did we handle all these flights before computers?

[KRiS..! @ Aug 26th 2008 6:35PM]

there weren't that many flights ;)

[rick in sf @ Aug 26th 2008 6:46PM]

yeah, there were only three flights a month and the most you had to do was keep track of all the mod airlines, PSA, Eastern and TWA...

And it was all done with an abacus and a roomful of surplus NASA chimps.

:)

ho ho and as well, ho.

[kevin @ Aug 26th 2008 6:38PM]

re: vax 780...I worked on those computers!

[Brewster @ Aug 26th 2008 6:45PM]

There was a VAX 11/780 that was use by a private rail line in Europe that ran non-stop for sixteen (16) years to control their track switching. Not bad for an old guy.

[Andrew @ Aug 26th 2008 6:58PM]

My university and all its students used them in late 80's when I did my degree. A classroom full of VT220 terminals connected to one of these is where you'd do your computer-related assignments. There was an old PDP11 with ferrite memory with its guts open in that room too, just for effect. Ah, those were the days. If anything went wrong - not often, thankfully - you'd wait for about an hour for the VAX to boot.

[Sporkinum @ Aug 27th 2008 10:51AM]

My dad was an old systems analyst and he sent me an email about some problem he had with his pc. Said he had to "IPL" it to clear the problem. I got a chuckle out of that. I can't laugh too much though since I was a computer operator on Burroughs an Unisys mainframes for my first 4 years in the Air Force.

[itguy08 @ Aug 26th 2008 6:47PM]

That's what happens when you replace the tried, true, and reliable systems with garbage Windows machines......

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/21/2120203
http://www.harris.com/view_pressrelease.asp?act=lookup&pr_id=77

[Jenny @ Aug 26th 2008 7:58PM]

Seriously. Windows is geared toward being capable to run different programs and multitask. Computers that only do one specific task, constantly, don't need an OS like windows.
Doesn't anyone pay attention to reliability calculations? Ex: a car without ANY options (a/c, power windows, radio) is less likely to fail than one with options. Simply, there are less parts to fail.

[Barry @ Aug 26th 2008 7:55PM]

We can't afford reliability, but we can afford to rebuild a country in the middle of a desert for a group of thankless people. Go figure!!

[Wwhat @ Aug 26th 2008 10:30PM]

Not to worry, nothing will be rebuild.

[linuxamp @ Aug 26th 2008 11:46PM]

Probably a bad network card.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/dublin_network_card/
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/80777,network-card-crashes-dublin-air-traffic-control.aspx

[UnixSystemsEngineer @ Aug 27th 2008 12:43AM]

Hopefully fixed by Friday or I'll be stuck here in... Atlanta!

... just kidding, southerners. Really. I love getting asked for money every 10 seconds and cut off by douchebags in Navigators who think they're driving a sports car...