Fortunately, this guy was there, and was able to determine the problems with that old FAA software.
Posted on 01/12/2023 6:50:36 PM PST by Golden Eagle
The software that failed and forced the Federal Aviation Administration to ground thousands of flights on Wednesday is 30 years old and not scheduled to be updated for another six years, according to a senior government official.
This system was installed in 1993 and runs the Notice to Air Missions system, or NOTAM, which sends pilots vital information they need to fly, the official said.
After the FAA was able to get planes flying again, a government official said a corrupted file that affected both the primary and the backup NOTAM systems appeared to be the culprit.
Investigators are working to determine if human error or malice is to blame for taking down the system, which eight contract employees had access to. At least one, perhaps two, of those contractors made the edit that corrupted the system, two government sources said Thursday.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Right there you can see what caused the problem!
Antiquated software and possible human error.
Interesting.
I thought my 99 Chevy was kinda old and tired....
Something stinks about this. And when did it become Missions instead of Airmen?
Are NOTAMs so critical you have to ground flights for half a day? Idk. But there was a lot of fighter jet activity at Andrews yesterday when I drove past.
Appears to be dual purpose acronym, and can stand for either, depending on organization. Not a good idea, either, as AF and FAA, often interoperate.
Just for comparison, I recall an incident from the 90s where Chicago O’Hare suffered a break down of their radar control system because the computer running it blew too many vacuum tubes to be quickly repaired.
Was Canada’s, too...?
The fact that it is old probably explains why it has worked so well everyday for all of these years.
Bring in your modern engineers and you get Boeing’s MCAS nose diving planes into the ground. Seriously this outage was not caused by the software itself. Someone did something they were not supposed to do.
System got stuck on a plural pronoun used for a singular.
Would someone explain to me again why, considering all the money we spend, both as taxpayers and customers, services seem to be getting worse instead of better? Is it something I did? Or, is this a case of "it's not you, it's me that's failing in this relationship?
Prior to 2021 notam was notice to airmen and mariners
If this had happened under President Trump, 100% of the responsibility and blame would have been hung right around his neck, and the MSM would have led the screaming symphony.
Two bits says Congress appropriated funds to replace that old equipment years ago but they used the money for something else - maybe increased salaries.
Before things were outsourced to India.
I know that and that is EXACTLY exactly my point. They focused on Woke bullish!t and lost focus on their critical mission.
BTW, NOTAM was originally “Notice to Airmen” or “Notice to Air Men.” “Notice to Mariners” is NOTMAR and is the marine equivalent.
Some core program functions, don’t change over time. If it ain’t broke than leave alone.
This sounds more like a maintenance error with a file.
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