What if London radar failed?
 

I've seen and dealt with radar failure both at Heathrow Tower and the old LATCC at West Drayton and not too many lives were lost. I believe that separate power supplies are employed, say for every other display, so that it should not possible for all screens to go blank (says he). Controllers can always peer over their colleagues' shoulder... in a state of utter terror!! It never lasts (too) long though and the backup flight progress strips are a God-send. Now don't dare ask what happens if the new electronic flight progress strips pack up...

Probably worse than straight radar failure was bad weather on radar back in the old days when heavy rain would virtually blank out the screen and there were no SSR labels. Didn't need Ex-Lax after that.

In that very highly unlikely scenario there are several fallbacks, none of which could be discussed in a public forum but the use of fighter Controllers in AWACS isn't one ;)

BD

Well you would immediatley stop all outbounds getting airborne, phone all of the adjacent sectors ie french, manchester etc etc, and ensure that they dont handover anymore traffic(hold them, divert them). Then you are left with the traffic you have when the radars went. You then control these planes procedurally, using the paper strips. They will all be level seperated, and you would then negotiate with adjacent sectors who have radar, how you are going to present these planes to them. But yes we would use the paper strips and control procedurally.

Those people would be air traffic controllers.:ok:

As HD says it is a nightmare if your radar fails...but you pick up the pieces and get on with it!

So what would happen if there was a fire?

Good point!

Fascinating answers though

Pretty much the same if there was a fire, except you might have less time. Stop everything, coming to you, get rid of everything you have safely.

Not giving anything away by saying that if there was a fire in the building, but not in the Ops room, the Ops rooms have a slight positive pressure compared to the rest of the building and also have measures to make it safe (allegedly) for operational staff to stay in situ whilst the building burns around them for quite a long time... longer than I'd want to stay there, and longer than it would take to transfer every aircraft to other sectors outside of the Swanwick AOR.

As for controlling aircraft procedurally and them all being level seperated - maybe more likely on airways (but still not 100%), but certanly not in the TMA - it would be carnage if it (total failure) happened when it was anywhere near busy, TCAS might save the day.

However it is not a concern because instantaneous failure through loss of power or complete loss of radar displays is almost impossible... there are of course other ways that a facility could be brought to a complete standstill instantaneously, but if that happened the controllers and staff would not be around or in a fit state to do anythng.

I am always amazed of the flexability that controllers have. We all stick to procedures and work the sector as they are designed for, but everytime you need help from an adjacent sector(weather etc), everyone is accomodating and it seems that no matter what you ask for, the response is always," yes no problem do this , do that", it is very reassuring.

This artical was in the Observer Newspaper the following Sunday.


At 6.30 a.m. on 15 November 1986 the London Air Traffic Control Centre (LATCC) at West Drayton suffered a total loss of mains power as the morning rush of flights began. A standby generator also failed. Radar screens covering Wales and England south of Newcastle went blank. The IBM 9020 computer shut down, halting updating of flight progress strips. Controllers had to revert to writing strips manually.

Radio contact with aircraft was precariously maintained by a battery supply with a life of 30 minutes. Pilots continued to fly in the busy airspace without radar by scrupulously maintaining their separation from other planes. But without radar monitoring by controllers on the ground little could have been done if a jet had strayed.

Power was restored five minutes before the batteries gave out. The fault was blamed on a freak sequence of events started by the failure of a small capacitor.

Managers were eager to clear the backlog of flights but the computer would not function normally. It displayed some radar returns but not others.

A LATCC controller said: 'We were pushed to handle more aircraft but refused because the computer could have gone down at any time. We were lucky. If the same sequence of events occurs in the summer, the effect does not bear thinking about.'

Of course when we have our all singing and dancing electronic strips, it might be even more interesting...
Obviously though, the EFPS displays will never ever fail. Just like the VCCS never has.

Vercingetorix.

You too are jogging my memory. I think it was rain that caused the problem in '86.

C.

London Radar failed?

Sod it I've a procedural rating I'll sort it out.:\

Not Long Now

I think the VCCS is workng as it was supposed to. We, the users, were told by management that there would be one failure in 49 years.

That was a mistake, management heard the supplier wrong.

What they actually said was "it would fail for the first 49 years"

Mind you, easy mistake to make... we also bought it in the belief we could cross couple more than two frequencies.

There are contingency plans in place.

PC VCCS has the ability to x couple up to 12, just like LAC can on VCS. It was LTC managements decision to restrict LTC to 2.

BD

BD

I am aware of that - I'm being cynical.

The same management who were supposedly addressing the issue 8 months ago. Never mind, functionality of ATC equipment takes less priority than turning a profit :cool: The fact that TC bandboxes regularly (and has to, to satisfy the same management teams restrictive manpower allocation at night makes it a joke).

The real reason for the Farnborough LARS investment? :}

In answer to your question, the adult nappy business would enjoy a brief spike in sales!:}

Lots of people who have come to totally rely on the reliable systems created by engineers would whinge about how they have to pick up the pieces because the engineers couldn't do their job properly.

To spread these whinges as widely as possible they would use home computers that hang, crash or otherwise malfunction weekly

:rolleyes:

Not sure what ProM is getting at... but if my PC crashes, not too many people end up dead. If radar fails at a busy ATC Unit it's the controllers who are at the sharp end and have to pick up the pieces and prevent people from getting dead, not the whizz-kids who designed the gear. I've been there, got the tee-shirt and eaten the stew!

It might happen once in a lifetime, but in that brief 5-10 minutes the controllers earn their whole life's salary, just a pilot earns his when he has a major malfunction of his aeroplane.

Trouble is it was always so difficult to convey this to the engineering chasps, for whom I had incredibly high regard.

HD

That "once in a life time" happened to me on three occasions. I must be very old! Or unlucky.

Most memorable time was at W Drayton one evening when it all went dark in the ops room (just the emergency lighting working). Then the lights went on, then back out again then on. I was on a break at the time, and was conscious of the eery quieteness (no strip printers running)....although every controller in the ops room was on his feet, reaching for the emergency RT handsets. I went back to my sector to lend a hand. I forget the cause now, it was something to do with the power supply modules deciding they were no longer un interruptable.....ho hum.

Loki.

Your spell of being unlucky started at 9am, Monday 4th June 1973.

Oh, and you are also very old.

C. :ok:

Mr Grubby

Thanks, can always rely on some people for a kind word or two.

I had two at Maastricht. One was when the mains power was cut, the diesel generator suffered a hydraulic lock and blew the cylinder head through the roof and then the Tech Watch Supervisor managed to short out the batteries.
It went very quiet and very dark in the Ops. Room.

All data/phone lines etc coming into the building are duplicated and run on different routes. Only where they enter the building do they come together. Guess where a contractor dug a hole. Again very wuiet, No radar, no R/T, no phones - at least that time we had lights.

Fortunately, we had very few problems in a stripless environment. The few we had when I was there, there was enough time on a frozen picture to jot down essential information before switching to a much improved back-up system. Nowadays all that info can be printed out on the sectors.

I think yours is the same as I used to use. You both heard wrong, it was "It will fail 49 times each year".

Reassuringly for those that print what we type here for the general unknowledged to panic about, I've never had a total loss in real life but have had it simulated 4 times in 7 years during Emergency Training. Its not the same, but I get the idea.

That sounds about right. One controller in particular has had two complete failures in two consecutive cycles, the second failure including a failure of the backup secondary panel at the same time.

The Radar is fine. It's the radio that you need to worry about :ugh:

5milesbaby..... Keep saying your prayers and always expect the unexpected... and the expected!!

The West Drayton ops room went dark in the early 90's too. An uninteruptable power supply er 'wasn't'. Back to battery R/T!! It took around 4 hours to fix, the NAS system did not like having its plug pulled either. That 'issue' caused the complete overhaul of power supplies to ops kit.

When Radar Fails
 

The world of ATC is a fascinating world.When radar fails, the team spirit reaches high levels of comradeship.Adjacent Ctlers 'feel' the need to support one another.When the Kuala Lumpur ATCC was burning back in the 90's, Ctlers who were on OFF rushed back to see what needs to be done.There was so much of cooperation from the Military and Ctlers from neighbouring countries.Such is the comradeship spirit among Ctlers. We still think ,discuss and pray for Ctlers who go thru mental tortures due to incidents/accidents in various parts of the world. With today's traffic, radar failures can be nightmares BUT then again, we are trained to handle such nightmares to the BEST of our abilities. Not forgetting too the tremendous cooperation from the pilots, things can be rectified by various methods.My two cents.:ok:

OI!

why was my post deleted from yesterday?

The West Drayton power system was far too complicated and those who designed the system at Swanwick certainly learned from the experiences of total loss at WD.
The classic WD failure happened when one of the Uninterruptible Power Supplies was taken out for maintenance and no-one had checked to see what the load was on the remaining three. Unfortunately, the load wasn't balanced and one of the remaining units overloaded and tripped out. Of course, care had been taken to ensure that any failure would only take out every other radar display. Care had also been taken to ensure that any failure would also only take out every other RDP computer. HOWEVER, no-one had ensured that the displays which stayed on were attached to the computers that stayed on ...

Because most of us have bitten our nails down to our elbows!

Seriously, I guess as one is working, the thought that the radar picture might suddenly go off doesn't come to mind; much like most pilots aren't sitting there waiting for an engine to conk out. However, what they have and what ATC does not (or did not) is a QRH. Controllers are regularly trained for all sorts of eventualities, but when something untoward occurs the actions taken are largely in the order that the controller(s) involved decide. During my radar training at Heathrow during quiet periods one training officer would put a newspaper on the radar screen and say "Radar's packed up, what are you going to do now?" Not by the book, but very useful.

R/T failure is not so bad - most ATC positions have one, maybe two, standby arrangements so communication should still be possible.

Fred used to use a dustbin lid on the flat-tops.....

Aaahh.. They don't make 'em like that nowadays!!

Guy I know who taught overseas (like me!) was watching a trainee on radar with two aircraft converging so he asked the trainee what he would do.. "Ahh Mr xxx, I find that if I close my eyes and pray, all will be well". He did, and it was.................

Are you sure you hadn't misunderstood, HD, and all he wanted was some help with the crossword ... ?


JD
;)

Jumbo driver.... Yes, I'm sure you're right, but he had to make it look good!!