USA flights stopped. FAA computer outage.
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Obviously someone hasn't been doing a good job for a while ...
Wall street journal, can't post link, google will find it.
On Tuesday night, a redundant backup kicked in for the FAA's Notam system, which provides aviation personnel information about flight restrictions, the officials said, but the data was corrupted and wasn't considered reliable.
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I still don't understand why FAA as the regulator is still allowed to operate the air traffic system. It should at least be operated as a public-private partnership such as NATS (UK) and Nav Canada. FAA is under a political appointed leadership and under such conditions, the budget allocations are usually diverted to politically correct projects instead of much needed modernizations.
Skywards747,
NavCanada, UKNATS and Airservices may be public/private, but make no mistake, these organisations are also under a political appointed leadership and have the same budget allocation problems. I cant speak for Canada and the UK but in Australia its written in to federal legislation that Airservices is to return a profit to Gov't....where do you think that puts the focus at budget time?
NavCanada, UKNATS and Airservices may be public/private, but make no mistake, these organisations are also under a political appointed leadership and have the same budget allocation problems. I cant speak for Canada and the UK but in Australia its written in to federal legislation that Airservices is to return a profit to Gov't....where do you think that puts the focus at budget time?
I still don't understand why FAA as the regulator is still allowed to operate the air traffic system. It should at least be operated as a public-private partnership such as NATS (UK) and Nav Canada. FAA is under a political appointed leadership and under such conditions, the budget allocations are usually diverted to politically correct projects instead of much needed modernizations.
NAV Canada, a nonprofit corporation that serves as the FAA’s Canadian counterpart, said today that it had also experienced its own brief NOTAM system outage. Brian Boudreau, a spokesperson for the company, says it was investigating the “root cause of the failure” but that it did not believe the issue was related to the FAA’s earlier trouble.
Often such partnerships are great and often they are terrible. It gives a chance for both sides to swap blame while the system burns to the ground.
Canadian aviation officials said an alert system that provides airlines with important safety information went down less than two hours after a similar system in the U.S. was restored on Wednesday.The system outage lasted for nearly three hours. NAV Canada's Notam entry system went down at about 10:20 a.m. ET and was restored at roughly 1:15 pm, said Vanessa Adams, spokeswoman for the Ottawa-based not-for-profit organization.
This has opened a can of worms on the NOTAM concept, specifically the difficulty in interpreting them and the expressed belief this is an FAA side problem. I don't see why a company cannot create a parser for NOTAMs to suss out just the applicable items for a flight - except, of course, any misinterpretation would leave that party liable if there was a bad outcome.
Lots of people with grudges and a bunch of opportunists are going to all pile on. I'm sure it will come out so much better with the newly emboldened data management experts hopping into action.
Australia has a regulator and an ATS service provider.
At the organisational level it seems a good idea, BUT
You end up with a SERVICE organisation run by people who know nothing whatever about flying aircraft or the economics of any part of the aviation industry.
The old public "service" Peter principle applies; people are promoted until they reach their level of incompetence.
We need pilots and statisticians working on ATC standards at ICAO, not those whose job it is to apply them.
So Skywards747, I appreciate your view but as a Pilot, an ATC and an ex regulator, may I suggest the need is to define the managerial skill set needed in each role then set out an organisational structure to optimise your chances of achieving the goal?
What we have here is not optimal at all.
A pilot does not do the structural analysis on his aircraft; a cleaner does not get to formulate the cleaning chemicals, and an ATC should not be deciding what ATS services to provide, to what standard, when and where.
At the organisational level it seems a good idea, BUT
You end up with a SERVICE organisation run by people who know nothing whatever about flying aircraft or the economics of any part of the aviation industry.
The old public "service" Peter principle applies; people are promoted until they reach their level of incompetence.
We need pilots and statisticians working on ATC standards at ICAO, not those whose job it is to apply them.
So Skywards747, I appreciate your view but as a Pilot, an ATC and an ex regulator, may I suggest the need is to define the managerial skill set needed in each role then set out an organisational structure to optimise your chances of achieving the goal?
What we have here is not optimal at all.
A pilot does not do the structural analysis on his aircraft; a cleaner does not get to formulate the cleaning chemicals, and an ATC should not be deciding what ATS services to provide, to what standard, when and where.
Last edited by Advance; 12th Jan 2023 at 22:03.
That was the position taken, yes. 
Notice to Airmen was correct terminology, and thus it was replaced by something useless because it had to be. That's entropy in action. Waitress became server, stewardess became flight attendant, NOTAM had to change.
Give this man a cigar. 
As to what happened, the single point of failure was found. One can idiot proof a system, but the world will, without fail, always provide a more accomplished idiot.
with no pragmatic sense behind. So Skywards747, I appreciate your view but as a Pilot, an ATC and an ex regulator, may I suggest the need is to define the managerial skill set needed in each role then set out an organisational structure to optimise your chances of achieving the goal?
What we have here is not optimal at all.
What we have here is not optimal at all.
"An engineer “replaced one file with another,” the official said, not realizing the mistake was being made. As the systems began showing problems and ultimately failed, FAA staff feverishly tried to figure out what had gone wrong. The engineer who made the error did not realize what had happened."
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What would have been sensible, as long as language and meaning have become pliable almost in an Orwellian way, is to declare NOTAM - and its plural form, NOTAMs - words in and of themselves. They no longer would have been abbreviated forms for other words, but instead would have meaning as they stand without being broken down. If asked what they refer to, the answer would be along the lines of, "notices of changed information that pilots, you know, people who operate flying machines, need to know".
Calling people who operate flying machines "air missions" ..... senseless, or devoid of sensibility at least.
Calling people who operate flying machines "air missions" ..... senseless, or devoid of sensibility at least.
Last edited by WillowRun 6-3; 13th Jan 2023 at 05:19.
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"Calling people who operate flying machines "air missions" ..... senseless, or devoid of sensibility at least."
Which might indicate the underlying culture in regulation; more interested in words than the substance of safety.
Which might indicate the underlying culture in regulation; more interested in words than the substance of safety.
In much of the civilized world, failure to acknowledge gender appropriately is frowned upon. We here, in the US, for some reason, see it as a virtue…
(Also, who wouldn’t want to call herself an “Aviatrix” if it was appropriate to do so. Beats the heck out of “pilot”…)
(Also, who wouldn’t want to call herself an “Aviatrix” if it was appropriate to do so. Beats the heck out of “pilot”…)
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Oversight letter
Let cynicism run as wild and rampant as you like . . . . but this letter from both the GOP and Dem most-senior Representatives on House Transportation & Infrastructure looks like the heat is going to stay on for the Secretary.
The detailed questions are, taken together, a broadly encompassing enquiry. Someone who had conducted a lot of written discovery under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, I'd guess, had a big role in framing and completing this set of what amounts to interrogatories (with requests to produce certain documents embedded). Your friendly forum SLF/attorney says, Bravo!!-- nicely, very nicely done....and neatness counts.
Oh, and Congress wants answers not later than 25 January - including an in-person briefing.
Note: some 120 other Members of Congress, from both parties, signed the letter.,
Link:
2023-01-13_-_letter_to_dot_on_notam_system_outage_final.pdf
The detailed questions are, taken together, a broadly encompassing enquiry. Someone who had conducted a lot of written discovery under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, I'd guess, had a big role in framing and completing this set of what amounts to interrogatories (with requests to produce certain documents embedded). Your friendly forum SLF/attorney says, Bravo!!-- nicely, very nicely done....and neatness counts.
Oh, and Congress wants answers not later than 25 January - including an in-person briefing.
Note: some 120 other Members of Congress, from both parties, signed the letter.,
Link:
2023-01-13_-_letter_to_dot_on_notam_system_outage_final.pdf
Last edited by WillowRun 6-3; 14th Jan 2023 at 03:31.
Took a bit to find it: https://transportation.house.gov/upl...tage_final.pdf
Perhaps he should focus his outrage at CISA or the fact that there isn't a national department for providing computing services to ensure best practices.
Why does he indict FAA for proactively asking for new hardware and conflate that with a user issue? Ironic as he loves to fly antique aircraft.
Until then Sam needs to take a moment and fix his own Committee website with the names of the members. You'd think he could manage to handle a list.
Perhaps he should focus his outrage at CISA or the fact that there isn't a national department for providing computing services to ensure best practices.
Why does he indict FAA for proactively asking for new hardware and conflate that with a user issue? Ironic as he loves to fly antique aircraft.
Until then Sam needs to take a moment and fix his own Committee website with the names of the members. You'd think he could manage to handle a list.
