Swanick Knackered by West Drayton (merged)

[narcisuslpl]

Though I've only heard this on the scouse line Is it true that the Swanick Radar is not working and thats why most LPL pax are stranded here till 10:00am!!! MAN BA pax are being told to check in but to keep their baggage with them! All sounds a little fishy...

Many apologies if this is all poppy cock..:O

Narcy

[atprider]

So the HCS has died again............ Wasn't it a date in june last time it died ??????:(

[Bobby Guzzler]

Think you must have good sources - look at it now, I'm supposed to be doing 4 sectors today, hmm? Good luck everyone, looks like it could be a long day.:zzz:

[Llademos]

Looks like flights are currently suspended until 0900-0930 GMT ex the UK ... not good news

[brockenspectre]

BBC is reporting it is West Drayton puter down - Swanwick OK. Conclusion it has aired is that it is the information about which flights routing where that is not available but separation etc OK. Flights are being delayed and only those fully id'ed are being allowed in the air, apparently.

:ok:

[mad_jock]

Its all very true, my mornings work has been canceled after the slot time went past the lunch time departure timefor the next rotation.

MJ

[Taildragger67]

From Bloomberg news:

U.K. Flights Are Suspended After Air Traffic Failure (Update1)


By Melissa Stock and Matthew Fletcher
June 3 (Bloomberg) -- All U.K. flight departures are suspended after an air traffic control computer failure, a British Airways spokeswoman said in an interview.
Flights are suspended until further notice, said the spokeswoman, who declined to be named.
The failure occurred at the air traffic control center in Swanwick, England, Sky News reported. Some flights are still able
to land, Sky News said. No flights have departed from airports
including Manchester, Bristol and Newcastle for more than an hour, Sky News said.



B'berg are now reporting that Manchester has re-opened.

Latest headlines:
*SKY CITES NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEM
*AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL NOW FULLY OPERATIONAL IN U.K., SKY SAYS

[Standard Jet Dep]

Yep just sat here on Ticket desk down in STN and nothing moving as yet. Apparently a couple of EZY and Ryanair have pushed,but are holding. According to my colleague one a/c just rotated this moment so its all fun at the fair down here. Im just happy all my pax are out of the way airside. :O

Keep the faith Brothers

[I'm not joking sir]

It's the Host Computer System at West Drayton, not Swanwick.

[The Nr Fairy]

BBC have recently (last 10 minutes) reported that the Host Computer at West Drayton is the source of the failure.

Apparently it's the system which prints out flight strips - no flight strip, big problem.

I'm not an ATCO, nor do I fly in upper levels (nor for that matter in controlled airspace that often) but I do seem to recall that this system has failed before with similar results.

Original reports that Swanwick had "closed down" appear to be incorrect, in which case a lot of people are breathing huge sighs of relief.

[toon]

oh poo, here we go again ! i,m on standby !!

[Unwell_Raptor]

The BBC reports that the crash was caused by a system upgrade that went wrong.

[G-MANN]

Just done 12 hour night shift and glad too be goin on 4 days off!!

Our slots this moring 4hr delays plus.

All I can say is have fun DADA. You know who you are!!!

G

[Van Der Hum]

The BBC reports that the crash was caused by a system upgrade that went wrong.

There was a routine shutdown last night. The problems arose shortly after the restart.

Having come off a night shift and seen some of the rubbish the media are reporting it makes me wonder just what really does go on in the world...

[eal401]

My understanding is that MAN has reopened in the last 30 mins.

Do we know for certain what has broken down yet. I got caught up as SLF when the West drayton comp died, coupled with KLMuk's sh*tty Fokker 100s, it wasn't much fun!

Don't envy anyone involved today, be they SLF, ATC or airline!

Van Der Hum, I'm sure if NATS told the media something, they'd at least get it semi-right.

[narcisuslpl]

Well flights were shooting out of here from eight o'clock together wilth MAN me thinks... SLF seem very understanding so far!!!

Good Luck to everyone else!

[El Grifo]

Just had a call from a contact V. high up in the NATS structure.

No doubt about it, the problem seems to have occured after computer re-boot at which time the left falanjee was not recognised.

Its true !!! :8

[Llademos]

Mr Yalland (NATS CE) said ...

'The reasons why planes were grounded was because we couldn't let them into the air'

that's not a reason, it's a tautology!

[warkman]

Software update?

That will teach them to update the Windows 98 system they use with a MS critical service pack! :p :p :p :p :p :p

[toon]

it,s ok everyone, don't panic,

BBC just reported that there seems to be no evidence of sabotage / terrorist activity !

did someone mention a missing falanjee !! i'll never fly again !

[Lee-a-Roady Moor]

Reports now say that it is back on line and no delays should be experienced! - No Delays!..:confused:

[IB4138]

BBC now scaremongering, saying delays may go into the weekend, but passengers should check-in as normal.

I just knew the Muppets were alive and well in the bowels of Television Centre!

[crosshatched]

Talking of muppets I see they wheeled out Moody as an aviation "expert" on Sky so he could rubbish Swanwick.

Whats the expression....A true expert doesn't express an opinion until he has seen all the evidence.

Rules out 100% of the experts on Sky then!

[amanoffewwords]

You guys crack me up.

You go around slagging off the BBC big time, yet if you really knew what was going on, you wouldn't need to source your information from there would you?

In passing, if someone's doing a "routine shutdown" isn't that usually because some work needs to be done on it? I've never know mission critical systems being shutdown just for the heck of it..

amofw

[under_exposed]

amanoffewwords, yes. For annual power system checks.

[stagger]

El Grifo

Your source clearly doesn't know what he is talking about - the problem was with the right falangee. And it wasn't just that it wasn't recognised - it was actually missing altogether for some reason. Anyway, it’s been replaced now and quite a few backup falangees have been installed just in case of further problems.

Is your “Contact V” a certain Mr Art Vandelay? Wasn’t he fired last week?

P.S. Please note it’s spelt falangee

;)

[Pirate]

What is a falan-thingy, however it's spelled?

[BusBoy]

you all watch too much TV! esp. Friends

[letMfly]

Llademos,

Mr Yalland is most definately NOT NATS CE, just a PR wallah I suspect, but I agree that he did NATS no justice with his defensive/aggressive stance and associated waffle.

Crasshatched,

Lay off poor old Moody. At least what he said went some way to explaining to the GP what happened.


NATS seems to have a habit of shooting itself in the foot every time there is any newsworthy incident involving UK ATC. Perhaps its time that they considered employing retired ATCOs in their PR department and train them in handling the press instead of using twits that talk with a plum in their mouth who don't really know much about the subject they are talking about.

[Self Loading Freight]

I just talked to NATS PR. Considering the pressure the chap must have been under, I think he acquitted himself pretty well. And handling PRs is a core journo skill, so you can't blame 'em if they tell you stuff that you don't pick up is not exactly what you need.

But things would have been a LOT better had NATS got a press release out pronto, updated it regularly, had some standard background material ready and announced a press conference for later today. The moment the system went down, the head of PR should have been got out of bed and a rehearsed plan kicked off.

The story is big across the world and NATS is not riding that mule.

R

[M.Mouse]

Lay off poor old Moody.

You obviously never flew with the man.

[Jordan D]

From the Terminal end things are getting better ... just (well 2hrs back) got in from EDI after flight on Easy from LTN. Delays were big when I left Luton ... and by the looks of the terminal at EDI quite a few of the flights were cancelled and the place is full of people rebooking.

But it will all sort itself out ... it always does.

Jordan

[Animalclub]

Will (or Can) someone answer Pirate's question....
What's a falangee?

Only reference I can find is on the Kenny G radio show!!

[Jerricho]

That will teach them to update the Windows 98

With that computer system, I think you'll find it's Windows 3.1 they were updating.

[VectorLine]

animalclub and pirate

You will find that it is actually spelt phalanges [plural]
or singularly phalanx .

They form a complicated part of the infrastructure, attached to the metacarpals, and are operated by a complicated system called extensor digitorum communis.

However in the NATS system and this failure in particular, generally the right phalanges are unable to communicate with the left phalanges. Therefore the one doesn't know what the other is doing.

:ouch: :}

[Pirate]

Vectorline

Thanks for that. If they had spelled it properly I would have known! I thought it might be some form of computerspeak the way it was.

[055166k]

Actually Swanwick hasn't got a computer, the £600million went on toilet fittings and the "garden centre" building. It is connected to the West Drayton computer for all the flight data stuff. When we moved to Swanwick we were promised a 24/7 system; however that was not quite true. The system is shut down once or twice a week for repair, sorry....essential updates, and can operate safely but with a reduced traffic level. Repairs, sorry....updates, are normally done at night and service delivery is not affected, nor noticed by the customer. Sometimes there are unwelcome knock-on effects; perhaps these occurred to-day......but I'm only guessing from the news reports!

[bagpuss lives]

The system is shut down once a week during the middle of the night so that new adaptations (new strip outfall data, routing information, airspace changes) can be brought into place.

This time these changes accompanied some new software implementations and changes that reacted rather badly when the system was brought back online, leading to a rather unstable HCS - never a good thing.

It took a good while to be sorted and restarted, hence the unfortunate problems this morning.

Very basically, HCS does indeed produce the flight progress strips (FPS) but, as part of that process, it also automates the estimate passing between centres (both internally and internationally) meaning that when it goes down strips have to be hand-written, bulk stores consulted and estimates and details manually passed between LACC, MACC, ScOATCC and our International friends.

[Bernoulli]

The BBC has taken a bit of stick earlier in this thread but the prize for the stupidest piece of journalism covering the West Drayton outage must go to ITN. On the early evening news tonight some news biddy stood up on a platform clutching a clipboard and looking authoratative. She announced the item and introduced the outside reporter with words ending "to find out just how close we came to tragedy we go now to....".

The outside journo and his interviewees from the profession (BALPA, ATC man) sounded moderate, measured and generally professional (there was a problem, no serious risk involved, it's getting back to normal). Then back to the studio where this woman kicks the whole piece firmly back into tabloid terrain. I can't judge whether she was actually stupid or whether the stupidity was an editorial decision. Either way it was a thoroughly silly presentation down at the Daily Star/Daily Mirror level.

[foo fighting]

.....following on from above.

as nats press office couldnt be arsed to stick someone on the tv by 8 am, we had to watch other aviation experts spout forth rubbish on the vents of this morning.

the situation was very easy to explain and would, hopefully helped to allay many possible fears of there being any safety issues yet it appears nats are above anything so conventional as doing that.

pisspoor, a lot of people in the company worked very hard during the night and day and management couldnt give a toss.

[Taildragger]

M.Mouse "You obvously never flew with the man"

Maybe you have and maybe you haven't, but to imply by inuendo that Moody was somehow lacking, does you no credit.
I think that the pax who were behind hime when he and his crew flew into the volcanic ash near Jakarta think he is in any perspective, a damn good Pilot and Captain, and would disagree with the implied slagging off.
Flying a heavy glider took some damn skill and judgement, along with a good crew.
The book on CRM was written that night. Try, try, try and try again, and then try some more, and never give up.
:* :*

[Balboy]

Looks like we were lucky today(BY). Ttook over alpha whisky this morning for a 1230 dep. Left early. Pax actually asked why we wern't delayed from AGP. Cant win em all!!

[Shuttleworth]

Taildragger - sadly you haven't the benefit of speaking to the Eng or F/O from that flight .
Lots of good stuff - none relevant to the thread of course!

I think you will find that they played a bigger part in the successful outcome than you know who - but one guy took all the praise!