http://www.msnbc.com/local/KNBC/320685.asp

Palm Springs airport problems PALM SPRINGS, Dec. 31  The radar at Palm Springs International Airport remained out-of-order on Friday, causing concerns among some air traffic controllers who work there.

Federal Aviation Administration specialists say the troubled radar system may not be salvageable. Part of the system was expected to be repaired sometime Friday, giving the control tower a beacon radar to communicate with aircraft, FAA specialist Doyle Bordelon said Thursday. He promised to lobby the FAA to replace the deteriorating system. Basically there is going to be a strong effort in Washington, I can guarantee that, Bordelon said. The radar was shut down Dec. 19, and 25 specialists from the FAAs national technical center were sent to evaluate and repair the system. Air traffic controllers have reported at least six close calls between planes flying in local airspace, including several that reportedly came within 400 feet of each other. The radar system has been plagued with problems since it was first installed two and a half years ago, they said. Bordelon likened the systems state of repair to a scene from the movie Apollo 13, in which temporary repairs were made with duct tape and tubes.

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), January 04, 2000

Answers

Let's keep a tally of FAA towers down during the first week of rollover

Palm Springs

Chicago

New Brunwick

La Guardia

Boston

.....others?

-- SH (squirrel@huntr.com), January 04, 2000.

Hard to tell whether the problems are related to Y2K glitches or whether it is simply ancient equpiment/infrastructure standing on it's last leg. It's quite likely that the folks working with the equipment (controllers) will not know the difference. I do know that they had some confirmed problems (Y2K related?, no one knows for sure)in Boston ARTCC (Nashua, New Hampshire) the control facility overlying the New York City airports as well as Boston and other northeastern cities. This created major delays all over the northeast. I haven't heard of the NYC or Boston towers or approach control facilities going down. Chicago had a small short lived glitch. Now Palm Springs. Apparently small and limited weather systems went down as well as oceanic communication devices on the west coast that amounted to an inconvenience to those working on those sectors. These have been repaired.

Not to discount the issue of Y2K, but on any given day in the mid to late 1990's there would have been an equal or greater number of equipment (hardware, software, support system, and power supply) failures due to the age of the ATC system and dependence upon outside sources such as telco lines, satellites etc. Quite a few of the ancient systems have been replaced but the dependencies and interfaces are the same and always when deploying new equipment, there are bugs that take some time to discover, then remediate. I remember a number of discussions about the FAA early in 1999 where folks went way off the deep end over failures that were unfortunately routine. Controllers have been complaining for years about radar screens that suddenly went blank or radios that ceased to work in the middle of a push forcing everyone to scramble to backup systems to the ho hums of the press and the public. Perhaps Y2K is a good thing in that a light was put on our operation and finally the public seems to care about the safety aspect of the ATC infrastructure even though Y2K may not have a darn thing to do with the failures that happen after the new year. My 2 cents worth.

-- Cathy AKA Ramp Rat (ldalcorn@alaska.net), January 04, 2000.

According to Koskinen just now on CNN he made it sound as if all airports had new equipment, new computers. It was on CNN's story about was money spent on Y2K a waste of money. Also, is it really the bad weather that is slowing air traffic? I was wondering, I thought only ice slowed it down, and I'm really asking...I don't know. Lurker 13

-- lurker 13 (lurker13@nowhere.here), January 04, 2000.

All kinds of things slow air traffic. Vectoring around thunderstorms or cells of intense weather, snow storms severely limit the capacity of most airports due to snow removal issues and IFR separation rules go into effect in low ceiling or visibility conditions rather than using visual approaches that really tighten up the group of aircraft circling to land. Equipment problems, air traffic volume, airport construction can all slow air traffic. These are just a few things that can slow air traffic down. There are many more.

-- Cathy AKA Ramp Rat (ldalcorn@alaska.net), January 04, 2000.

The FAA system is ancient and needs to be replaced. Close calls like this have been happening for years. It's time to speak up. Lobby your congressperson to get on the stick and allocate some money to get the FAA to buy new systems--that work!

-- Marie (pray4peace@compuserve.com), January 04, 2000.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/calreport/calrep_story.cgi?N162.HTML

Marines called in to relieve Palm Springs airport radar crisis with military fix

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) -- Marines have been called in to set up temporary military radar at Palm Springs International Airport, which has been plagued by a faulty system shut down three weeks ago because it wasn't detecting air traffic.

Marine Corps specialists were at the airport Friday to select a location for the mobile radar facility, which was expected to be operational Monday, said Curtis Warren, local National Air Traffic Controllers Association spokesman.

The airport has been without radar since Dec. 19, when chronic problems led Federal Aviation Administration technicians to shut it down for repairs.

The balky radar, described by Warren as "a hodgepodge of cast off systems, covers a 30-mile radius.

"Much to the FAA's credit, they've called in the military and circumvented the entire procurement process and brought in the Marines," Warren said.

A 25-member FAA technical team spent eight days examining the radar facility five miles away from the airport and determined it was unreliable and couldn't be fixed.

"We were actually dropping targets, they're jumping, vanishing and altitudes are changing on us," Warren said.

Controllers, who have been spreading out traffic flying into the Coachella Valley 110 miles east of Los Angeles, have complained about close calls in the skies near the airport.

"Some missed between 100 to 300 feet," said Warren, who represents the 26 controllers at the airport. "It's the kind of separation that would get an air traffic controller suspended from duty.

"With radar at any one time we're talking to approximately 20 planes. In the non-radar situation, we're only talking to three or four planes, meaning 17 others are on their own."

Aircraft in the Palm Springs area must now stay 30 miles apart horizontally, the FAA said. The separation is normally three miles horizontally and 1,000 feet apart vertically.

Michael Lenick, the FAA manager of traffic for the airport, has said it was still safe to fly out of Palm Springs because controllers are trained in non-radar routing.

But Warren said the terminal's controllers are currently "blind" to any traffic below 8,000 feet, and they are maintaining most direction by sight and radio communication.

Lenick wouldn't discuss the arrival of the Marines, referring calls to FAA spokeswoman Kirsty Dunn at the agency's regional headquarters in Seattle.

"We are going to have a U.S. Marine Corps unit installed to supplement air traffic operations while the FAA evaluates the reliability of a replacement beacon," Dunn said.

That beacon, part of a secondary radar system, was expected to arrive late Friday and it will take several weeks to get it operational. The temporary military radar will be operational Monday.

"We want to assure the reliability of the replacement beacon, which is a more powerful beacon for the secondary system," Dunn said. "It boosts the radar's capability to overcome interference problems."

The FAA has refused to replace the failed primary system despite more than two years of complaints and repair attempts, Warren said.

A state-of-the-art system and control tower to replace the airport's 40-year-old facility would cost $30 million, he said.

Doyle Bordelon, spokesman for the FAA's national technical center, agreed earlier with Warren's assessment of the current Palm Springs radar.

"Mr. Warren is not out of line," Bordelon said. "We're working very closely, he's raising valid issues, and we're working as a team."

The FAA complains it doesn't have the money and Palm Springs is perceived as a small market that doesn't need a sophisticated system, the controllers union spokesman said. The airport handles 1.3 million passengers annually.

Radar was first installed in the Coachella Valley in 1979 after the air crash death of Frank Sinatra's mother, Dolly. Sinatra, who lived in Palm Springs, lobbied for the airport radar.

"It worked fine until they erected huge windmills that canceled out some of the radar returns," Warren said. "Targets were vanishing and dropping (off the radar).

"For $30 million we could provide the valley with the kind of safe air traffic enjoyed by every other metropolitan area in the country."

-- not flying (nope@not.me), January 07, 2000.