My stepdaughter works for Argenbright Security at the Aspen Airport and she just got home from work. The airport closed due to the lights failing (I believe the runway lights, what other light failure would close the airport?) at approximately 6:00 pm MST.

If the outage lasts for any length of time it should make our worthless Glenwood Post paper and I will post that URL tomorrow. I don't know what their deadline is for a story but you heard it here first (actually I posted on TB2000 first)

BTW its somewhat significant because winter is a very busy time of the year and Aspen airport is busier than you would think.

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@bwn.net), January 12, 2000

Answers

Guy - Here's an article about the Y2k outage at Aspen Airport...

Wednesday, January 19, 2000 1/3/0

Y2K bug bites at airport

By Mick McQuilton/Aspen Daily News Staff Writer A much-anticipated New Year came and went with few Y2K-related problems worldwide, but minor computer glitches associated with the date change did not go unnoticed in Aspen and beyond.

On New Year's Day, flight information monitors at the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport were flashing the year "20100," according to passenger reports. The terminals reportedly showed no departing or arriving planes, presumably because no airline schedules flights 18,100 years in advance. Apparently the problem was not immediately corrected, and the terminals had been switched off Sunday afternoon. No delays were reported as a result of the error.

A customer service agent at the airport said Sunday they experiencing "no problems, only challenges," and would not comment specifically on the flight information system.

"They are not my computers, they're the airlines' computers," said the agent, who would not give her name. "You'll have to call United."

Calls to United's corporate spokesperson went unanswered Sunday.

The United Airlines Web site also may have been affected by the glitch. When asked to show available flights from Aspen to Denver on several dates in January and April 2000, the Web site returned "no flights available." United operates several flights a day between Aspen and Denver.

Other Internet servers experienced date-related problems as well. The Aspen Daily News' Web site, hosted by ImaginOn Digital Productions, showed Sunday's date as "Jan. 2, 19100." No one answered the phone at ImagineOn's San Carlos, Calif., offices Sunday.

~snip~

Other minor Y2K-related computer anomalies were reported worldwide, including a glitch that shut down an electrocardiogram analyzer in a Swedish hospital and a similar malfunction in Huntsville, Ala., that caused a computer to give a newborn baby the age of 100 on its ID bracelet.

However, officials were aware Sunday of no major problems associated with Y2K locally. A press release from U S West said the company's network was unaffected by the date change, and Pitkin County Sheriff's Deputy Ellen Anderson confirmed that "like the rest of the world, Aspen and Pitkin County made the transition into the Year 2000 with no interruptions of power or phones."

~snip~

Source: Aspen Daily News; Aspen, Colorado

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-post-reply-form.tcl

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), January 19, 2000.

Correction: Here's the Url address to the Aspen Daily News article -

http://ajr.newslink.org/cgi/goto.cgi?2=000221

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), January 19, 2000.