Flights Grounded Out West?

FOX News ^ | 9/14/04 | NeverGore

[nevergore]

According to Laurie Dhue at the bottom of the hour all flights are grounded at LAX due to a "radio problem"...

[JustPiper]

Same on our 911 system and backup, NEVER an explanation but hey we're the city that still does not accept accountability for all those people dying in a County bldg fire!

[FairOpinion]

LATEST:

System Failure Snarls Air Traffic in the Southland (Radio AND Radar were out)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1216468/posts

A computer glitch at 4:40 p.m. apparently caused the radio and radar failures at the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center in Palmdale, which handles cruise-altitude air traffic across Southern California and most of Arizona and Nevada, an area of about 178,000 square miles.

Without warning, radios went dead and radar screens went blank. An official with the air traffic controllers union, Hamid Ghaffari, said a seldom-used backup system came up "for a couple of minutes, and then it failed too."

[jeffers]

Wal-Mart has Armour Treat for a buck a can, better than Spam. That's a good price on the corned beef hash though, I've been paying 2 bucks a can.

I also like canned white chicken but it's a little more at $3 a can. Lots you can do with it though. Also good is Jack Link's ground beef in foil packs that don't require refrigeration. The Mexican flavored variety makes some first rate tacos and burritos.

Out where I live, a six inch snow turns into 5 foot drifts regularly, and it's always a good idea to keep a stockpile on hand. The phone and power aren't all that reliable either. One spring we saw 17 inches of heavy wet snow that so clogged the roads with stuck cars, my neighbor couldn't get out of his driveway, in a Case 4400 backhoe. I didn't even try. A book, a whale oil lamp, and a stockpile of food and I was more than happy to just look out the window till it melted.

[safisoft]

Your pushing it Fred, and you seem very argumentative. Lose the personal attacks. I really don't want to get ugly with you. OK?

Thanks for the warning Joe. I hate for it to get ugly. LOL!

You know, I don't see any airplanes outside this morning. Wonder what's going on? Could be the gummint and news are lying and everything isn't normal this morning? Could it be that what happened last night really was a crisis after all? If you are up, look out to the east (for 30 miles, with an unobstructed view) and see if there are any airplanes arriving. Oh wait, 5:30am your time, there shouldn't be many aircraft landing at LAX at that time.

Never mind. Everyone go about your business.

[safisoft]

Then eventually I guess the pilots figured it out and got onto different frequencies and communicated with other centers. I think it was much more dangerous, than they are letting us believe. They didn't want people to panic.

Everyone was on flight plans. Controllers working LA Center do not direct aircraft in most cases. Most of the time, everyone just stays on their route and altitude, so a loss of communications with a high altitude sector is not a big deal. I happens from time to time. Even with a loss of separation (the technical term for aircraft that are on their routes but still do not maintain minimum distance from each other), ALL commercial aircraft have advanced anti-collision systems that they can avoid other aircraft.

There was never any safety issue. There are multiple layers of communication and safety in air traffic control. This was not that unusual of an event, no matter what 'Joe' was saying.

[Lijahsbubbe]

Mpls Int'l had a power failure also a month or so back. I don't believe the cause was ever determined.

I googled power outages for airlines and after searching briefly I saw that both LA and Austin (TX) had 3 power failures each back in March and April.

[safisoft]

I googled power outages for airlines and after searching briefly I saw that both LA and Austin (TX) had 3 power failures each back in March and April.

It isn't that unusual.

It is a pain in the neck, but it high altitude Centers experience them every once in a while, and the more numerous low altitude TRACON centers more often because there are more of them. They usually don't make news at all (except to those of us that experience them), unless, like in this case, it is a large center that also has many large airports in it. For instance, when Indianapolis Center has problems, it affects aircraft flying over the states of Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois, but because there are no large airports in their sector, it does not affect traffic like having LA Center go down with 5 very large and busy airports affected.

[Lijahsbubbe]

And I'm supposed to take your word for it when you chew your feet? J/K

Seriously though, I suppose occurences of this nature are more suspect to the average layman (me) in our age of terrorism.

[safisoft]

Seriously though, I suppose occurences of this nature are more suspect to the average layman (me) in our age of terrorism.

No question about it, I understand completely. The reason I posted to this thread was because I wanted people who had loved ones flying to know this was NOT that unusual, although a real hassle. FR is great, but sometimes it descends into Tin Foil silliness when people don't have any background in the subject.

[Chemist_Geek]

This thread has gotten downright silly.

"Stop that, stop that."

Seriously, though, I agree; I think, though, that it's mostly people not knowing how ATC works. Throw in a justified dose of terrorism concerns...

[Sunshine55]

We know, we know...you're a pilot...

[Chemist_Geek]

How many centers are there in the United States? I forget. Palmdale's just one of them. If you're ever on a transcontinental flight that offers pilot talk, you'll hear centers handing off your flight as you go in & out of their jurisdictions.

Here's a post I made with the map of ARTCCs (aka Centers).

[JTHomes]

Hey Laurie, how you Dhuein'?

[JTHomes]

"This is your captain speaking; we have a little communication problem. Anyone got a cell phone?"

[safisoft]

We know, we know...you're a pilot...

Which I mentioned once in my original post, and yet all the "still-no-planes-in-the-sky-over-me" types still thought they KNEW something was awry. Hmmm.

[DAVEY CROCKETT]

All we've been told is that (an FAA communication) system is down
Fair, this sounds like subterfuge to me~! How does the FAA communication system just 'go down'?!
Just like when we happened to 'just lose' our 911 system here in a city the size of Chicago! Blech!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I emailed everyone in the airlines that I know, lets see what knid of answer I get, we will know more:) Or see if I get an answer. Ping to Indie

[Palladin]

All's well that ends well.

[FairOpinion]

You'll never believe what they say caused the outage!

Maintenance Lapse Cited in FAA Radio Breakdown

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=6248582

"The FAA said preliminary results of an investigation found that a 30-day maintenance check on the primary radio and voice communications system for the control center handling high-altitude traffic for the southern California region was never made.

The radio system automatically shuts down after a period of time if the maintenance work is not performed. Also, the back-up radio communications system was not configured properly and did not work."

Anybody wants to buy a bridge? I have a few for sale.

[Palladin]

If this is what really happened, those maintenance idiots should be fired.

They could have caused a real tragedy.

[Selene]

Anybody wants to buy a bridge?...

A completely lame "reason".