Paper Airplanes

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I was just wondering what everyone thought about the recent computer failure the Air Traffic Controllers had to deal with in Boston. According to the report by the Associated Press: "The problem at the Boston Center in Nashua, N.H., began Wednesday at about 6:50 p.m., one of the busiest times of the day, and lasted for 37 minutes, the Boston Globe said. Approximately 75 controllers at the center were following about 300 aircraft at the time. Blips on radar screens showed controllers there were planes in the air, but their altitude, speed, routes and destinations were wiped out by the computer failure. 'It was chaos,' William Johannes, local president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Assosciation, told the newspaper. 'We had no idea where some of the planes were.'" Also stated in the article, "Officials said the mainframe computer failed Wednesday and the backup system that was used could not reload all the information." Does this type of thing happen frequently??? or was someone maybe testing their Y2K compliance? Ha!

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), August 23, 1998

Answers

Gayla

Yes this type of situation happens from time to time. Look for it to happen with increasing frequency.

As always, the thing that absolutely cracks me up is what the FAA has to say after things return to normal, "Safety was not compromised." Puuuuleeeezeee!!

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), August 23, 1998.


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