vapilot2004
7th Mar 2006, 22:44
Airline flights to and from the New York area were delayed up to an hour or more this afternoon after the a computer failed at the area's radar center in Ronkonkoma, N.Y.
Air traffic controllers were forced to hold New York-bound planes on the ground as far away as Chicago, and eventually, to allow them to take off but with 15 miles between them instead of the usual five.
Delays of an hour or more hit La Guardia, Newark and Teterboro airports. In addition, the delays affected planes planning to fly through the New York area on the way to more distant destinations.
La Guardia was so crowded with planes that could not leave that planes wanting to fly there had to wait until long after the computer system was back up and running, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Kennedy International Airport did not experience significant delays, because it has lower traffic in the afternoons.
The computer failure occurred around 2:15 p.m. at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center in Ronkonkoma, one of 20 centers around the country that handles mostly high-altitude, long-distance flights.
A backup system, with more limited capacity, was started about 20 minutes later, and the main computer restarted around 3:15 p.m., but delays persisted for hours longer, said Laura J. Brown, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
The backup system does not display as much information on the radar screen as the regular one.
In addition, when planes arrived in the New York area, controllers had to speak by phone to their counterparts in other cities to learn details like the airline and flight number. Usually that information is transmitted with a mouse click. As a result, controllers spaced out the incoming planes to a volume that they could handle with the additional work required on each plane.
Patrick J. McDonough, a controller at the center, said that when the computer system began to fail, and again when it was restarted, it intermittently "hiccupped." The radar scope usually displays two categories of information, a blip marking the plane's position and a text block that gives its identity, altitude and speed, but with each hiccup, he said, "all of the data blocks shuffled," and the two became disconnected, making it harder to keep track of which plane was which.
Mr. McDonough said the F.A.A. on Feb. 9 installed a new computer tool that allows controllers to send planes on direct routes, avoiding the standard segments that add miles to trips. He said that might have contributed to the computer failure.
Ms. Brown said that the cause of the failure was not yet known but that the effect of the software change would be investigated.
Looks like a job well done by the NY controllers. Must have been a flashback to the 60's or 70's for them - ie no data tags and manual hand offs.
Air traffic controllers were forced to hold New York-bound planes on the ground as far away as Chicago, and eventually, to allow them to take off but with 15 miles between them instead of the usual five.
Delays of an hour or more hit La Guardia, Newark and Teterboro airports. In addition, the delays affected planes planning to fly through the New York area on the way to more distant destinations.
La Guardia was so crowded with planes that could not leave that planes wanting to fly there had to wait until long after the computer system was back up and running, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Kennedy International Airport did not experience significant delays, because it has lower traffic in the afternoons.
The computer failure occurred around 2:15 p.m. at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center in Ronkonkoma, one of 20 centers around the country that handles mostly high-altitude, long-distance flights.
A backup system, with more limited capacity, was started about 20 minutes later, and the main computer restarted around 3:15 p.m., but delays persisted for hours longer, said Laura J. Brown, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
The backup system does not display as much information on the radar screen as the regular one.
In addition, when planes arrived in the New York area, controllers had to speak by phone to their counterparts in other cities to learn details like the airline and flight number. Usually that information is transmitted with a mouse click. As a result, controllers spaced out the incoming planes to a volume that they could handle with the additional work required on each plane.
Patrick J. McDonough, a controller at the center, said that when the computer system began to fail, and again when it was restarted, it intermittently "hiccupped." The radar scope usually displays two categories of information, a blip marking the plane's position and a text block that gives its identity, altitude and speed, but with each hiccup, he said, "all of the data blocks shuffled," and the two became disconnected, making it harder to keep track of which plane was which.
Mr. McDonough said the F.A.A. on Feb. 9 installed a new computer tool that allows controllers to send planes on direct routes, avoiding the standard segments that add miles to trips. He said that might have contributed to the computer failure.
Ms. Brown said that the cause of the failure was not yet known but that the effect of the software change would be investigated.
Looks like a job well done by the NY controllers. Must have been a flashback to the 60's or 70's for them - ie no data tags and manual hand offs.