Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 23, 1995 TAG: 9508230086
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Four times this year, the phrase ``NOT UPDATING RADAR AND TIME'' has flashed across radar screens at the FAA's air traffic control center in Chicago. Then, just as suddenly, symbols for hundreds of planes carrying thousands of lives have wavered and vanished.
``There's no way to relate to what happens next,'' says Ken Kluge, a controller at the Aurora, Ill., facility. ``It's total chaos. The minute the computer flops, your heart jumps into overdrive.''
Such failures have become common to the nation's frayed air traffic control system. The network has experienced 21 since April, caused mostly by computer breakdowns and other equipment malfunctions. The New York center alone has had three failures.
The breakdowns have not resulted in plane crashes.
Controllers have been forced to rely on backup systems that aren't as sophisticated, and in some cases they have lost all radio contact with planes in the air.
The immediate problem is aging computers, some of which have 1950s vacuum-tube technology. Maintenance on key computers is delayed for fear of damaging crumbling components for which there are no replacements.
``We're cannibalizing everything we have,'' says Robert Valone, the director of the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Air Traffic Systems Development. ``The technicians prefer not to touch the equipment for fear something will break.''
But the blame goes deeper. These geriatric computers were to have earned retirement two years ago, replaced with a state-of-the-art system.
Bureaucratic indecision, long procurement delays and the hugely complex software involved forced FAA officials to scrap its first plans in favor of a simpler system that won't be in place until next decade.
The original price tag of $12 billion has tripled to $37 billion. The 10 years estimated for changing the system has doubled to 20.
The past four months have been a nightmare of glitches and shutdowns around the nation's system of 350 traffic control facilities:
South Florida's new radar system fails in thunderstorms. After several incidents, FAA officials cautiously announced they seemed to have fixed it by disabling some new software. Three weeks later, the radar failed again, blacking out a 400,000-square-mile area for 11/2 hours.
Power failures at the Fremont, Calif., center knocked out ground control for Northern California, Nevada and 18 million square miles of the Pacific. Pilots, out of contact with the ground for 15 minutes, were on their own. At least two close calls were reported.
Computer crashes have become a way of life for controllers at centers outside Chicago and New York. Flights are diverted from blacked-out areas and held on the ground for hours.
by CNB