Northwest Airlines Grounded

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Channel 2 News in Detroit is reporting, no flights in or out of Detroit. A cable line in Minneapolis was cut by a constructon crew. Flights in the air were able to land but are sitting on the ground with passengers not being able to disembark.

It seems like way too many contractors are getting blamed for the numerous computer failures popping up.

-- Trish (adler2@webtv.net), March 21, 2000

Answers

Or, it could be that we want to blame everything on computer failures to support our original Y2K predictions when indeed mechanical or human error is involved.

Did you know that the Great Chicago Fire in the 1860's was caused by a Y2K glitch?

You didn't, because it is all a conspiracy.

Y2k is the most finely wound conspiracy in the history of mankind. What is even more amazing is that in these days of more information outlets, heavier scrutiny, and information leaks, no information has leaked out.

Apparently, the government has been much better at hiding something as internationally far-reaching and potentially widespread as Y2K problems, while being unable to cover-up more local things such as the Monica Lewinsky scandal, misappropriation of funds, Travelgate, etc.

How can that be?

Oh wait. I know. That information was released in order to turn our attention away from Y2K.

I forgot, it's all conspiracy, all the time.

-- CJS (cjs@noemail.com), March 21, 2000.


Fuck you CJS. By denying that ANY incidents could be Y2K related, you're just as bad as the most extreme doomers.

So eat shit asshole.................

-- No polly (eat@me.now), March 21, 2000.


Attention Moron (No Polly)

I'm sure that there have been Y2k failures in companies that have created problems. Even disasters possibly. However, if you go the GICC board and see some most of the crap that gets spewed onto these forums, you would think that that everything has a Y2K connection, even when NO evidence exists.

Many doomers said that oil would be a predictor of Y2K problems, as would chemical spills, supply chain breakdowns, energy, shipping, automation, building controls, and a declining stock market. Well, when you throw out a blanket of possibilities, one of them will probably happen. So oil prices went up.

And shitheads like you jumped right on it and immediately started attributing it to Y2K problems, even though OPEC began reducing oil output last spring.

So in this case a cable was cut, and now their are airline problems. What does this have to do with Y2K?

Don't you think with all of the problems that people here have attributed to Y2K, somewhere, somehow, there would be some whistleblowers that would come out and say something about it.

Hiding Y2k errors and passing them off as something else won't do most organizations any good, anyway.

I think you're just pissy because you can't believe how far off base you were on Y2K. Moreover, you probably told people what they should do to prepare. What is that like to be so wrong, and have others rely on you for information?

Why don't you move onto the next disaster, cretin.

And while you're at it, you go fuck yourself.

-- CJS (cjs@noemail.com), March 21, 2000.


Ignoring the little tiff in progress, here's the actual story:

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000321/us/northwest_cable_cut_2.html

Tuesday March 21 11:28 PM ET NW Airlines Loses Communication

EAGAN, Minn. (AP) - Northwest Airlines lost most of its communications lines systemwide for about 2 1/2 hours Tuesday when a telecommunications company hit a fiber-optic cable, leading to cancellations and delays around the country.

Passengers aboard planes were not in danger, but Northwest temporarily suspended boarding additional flights until the problem was fixed, said spokeswoman Mary Beth Schubert.

About 130 of the airline's 1,700 daily flights were canceled systemwide, and an undetermined number were delayed. Schubert said communications lines went down just after 2 p.m. CST, affecting reservations and baggage information and the airline's electronic ticketing system.

Major delays were reported in Detroit, where about 30 flights were canceled, according to Northwest spokesman Doug Killian.

Another 19 were canceled in Minneapolis, with the remainder scattered around the system. Some delays also were experienced in Singapore and Bangkok, he said.

Northwest's Web site also was out of service because of the severed cable.

Kim Bothun, a spokesman for U S West, the telecom that owns the fiber- optic cable, said the line was cut by a competitor McLeod USA, a local and long-distance telecommunications company based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She said it is not uncommon for telecommunications companies' cables to be very close to each other.

McLeod USA spokesman Bruce Tiemann said a subcontractor, whose name he did not know, was responsible. He said crews were installing fiber- optic cables at the time, and the area in which they were digging had not been marked as an area containing other cable lines.

Northwest officials said the airline expected to be back to normal operations by Wednesday morning.

-------------------------------------------------

So, what it says is that no passengers were forced to sit on airplanes, only that they suspended boarding flights. 130 flights were cancelled out of 1700, which is a lot different than Northwest Airlines being grounded, as the article title so breathlessly states. US West and McLeod USA both admit that a cable got cut although they'll fight it out as to who was responsible. In this case, it's really difficult to blame computers.

How about if we try to get details about a story before we post something we saw on TV?

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), March 22, 2000.


And then again,who's Detail are we to believe??Most "Details"come from Sources we have learned to take with a Grain of Salt.

-- I M slow (no@has.aids), March 22, 2000.


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