Lost Radio Contact Leaves Pilots On Their Own (02 Nov 2004)

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Lost Radio Contact Leaves Pilots On Their Own (02 Nov 2004)
Riggs agrees. "It was an oversight," he says. "Harris, the manufacturer, was aware of the problem but didn't really know how it would impact the system." But the FAA didn't learn of the problem until it ran the new system in the field. It ran for 49.7 days and then it crashed. They weren't sure why, says Riggs. "They rebooted the system and everything seemed to be working fine. About a week later another system crashed in Houston." That's when the FAA instituted the 30-day manual reboot maintenance procedure.

"But," says Riggs, "it's insane for the FAA to continue to operate a system with a known problem. And by doing that, they expose themselves to this failure. And the problem is still out there."

Article URL: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/nov04/1104nair.html

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