speaking of planes

[sky otter]

FAA Confirms Spy Plane Scrambled Air Traffic Control in California

By Andrew Blankstein
The Federal Aviation Administration has confirmed an exclusive NBC News report that a Cold War-era spy plane scrambled the computer systems of a major air traffic control system in Southern California, resulting in region-wide air travel delays affecting hundreds of flights and thousands of passengers.

In a statement, the FAA acknowledged that its air traffic system, which processes flight plan information, "experienced problems while processing a flight plan filed for a U-2 aircraft that operates at very high altitudes under visual flight rules."

The U-2 spy plane, the same type of aircraft that flew high-altitude spy missions over Russia 50 years ago, passed through the airspace monitored by the L.A. Air Route Traffic Control Center in Palmdale, Calif., around 2 p.m. on Wednesday. The L.A. Center handles landings and departures at the region's major airports, including Los Angeles International (LAX), San Diego and Las Vegas.

The computers at the L.A. Center are programmed to keep commercial airliners and other aircraft from colliding with each other. According to sources, the U-2 was flying at 60,000 feet, but the computers were attempting to keep it from colliding with planes that were actually miles beneath it.

Though the exact technical causes are not known, the spy plane's altitude and route apparently overloaded a computer system called ERAM, which generates display data for air-traffic controllers. Back-up computer systems also failed.

"The computer system interpreted the flight as a more typical low altitude operation, and began processing it for a route below 10,000 feet," said the FAA in its statement.

"The extensive number of routings that would have been required to de-conflict the aircraft with lower-altitude flights," said the FAA, "used a large amount of available memory and interrupted the computer's other flight-processing functions."

The FAA had to stop accepting flights into airspace managed by the L.A. Center, issuing a nationwide ground stop that lasted for about an hour.

At LAX, one of the nation's busiest airports, there were 27 cancellations of arriving flights, as well as 212 delays and 27 diversions to other airports. Twenty-three departing flights were cancelled, while 216 were delayed. There were also delays at the airports in Burbank, Long Beach, Ontario and Orange County and at other airports across the Southwestern U.S.

The agency said that the issues were resolved within an hour and that the system was immediately adjusted and now requires "specific altitude information for each flight plan," In addition the agency said it has enabled facilities that use the computer system to significantly increase the amount of flight-processing memory available.

"The FAA is confident these steps will prevent a reoccurrence of this specific problem and other potential similar issues going forward," the FAA statement said.

Developed more than a half-century ago, the U-2 was once a workhorse of U.S. airborne surveillance. The plane's "operational ceiling" is 70,000 feet. In 1960, Francis Gary Powers was flying a U-2 for the CIA over the Soviet Union when he was shot down. He was held captive by the Russians for two years before being exchanged for a KGB colonel in U.S. custody. A second U.S. U-2 was shot down over Cuba in 1962, killing the pilot.

First published May 5 2014, 4:47 PM


http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/faa-confirms-spy-plane-scrambled-air-traffic-control-california-n97751


...............................

  U-2 Caused Widespread Shutdown of US Flights Out of LAX 122
Posted by timothy on Sunday May 04, 2014 @08:31AM
from the that-bono-is-such-a-ham dept.

Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes
"Reuters reports that last week's computer glitch at a California air traffic control center that led officials to halt takeoffs at Los Angeles International Airport was caused by a U-2 spy plane still in use by the US military, passing through air space monitored by the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center that appears to have overloaded ERAM, a computer system at the center.

According to NBC News, computers at the center began operations to prevent the U-2 from colliding with other aircraft, even though the U-2 was flying at an altitude of 60,000 feet and other airplanes passing through the region's air space were miles below. FAA technical specialists resolved the specific issue that triggered the problem on Wednesday, and the FAA has put in place mitigation measures as engineers complete development of software changes," said the agency in a statement. "The FAA will fully analyze the event to resolve any underlying issues that contributed to the incident and prevent a reoccurrence." The U.S. Air Force is still flying U-2s, but plans to retire them within the next few years. The U-2 was slated for retirement in 2006 in favor of the unmanned Global Hawk Block 30 system, before the Air Force pulled an about-face two years ago and declared the Global Hawk too expensive and insufficient for the needs of combatant commanders."

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/05/04/0419236/u-2-caused-widespread-shutdown-of-us-flights-out-of-lax

...................


FAA says air traffic computer was overwhelmed by U-2 spy plane
By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES Mon May 5, 2014 9:25pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - An air traffic control glitch that caused hundreds of flight cancellations or delays across Southern California last week was triggered by a computer misinterpreting the flight path of a U-2 spy plane, the Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday.

A computer problem at an air traffic control center in Palmdale, California last Wednesday forced the delay or cancellation of more than 200 flights at Los Angeles International Airport.

Dozens of flights were also delayed at smaller airports across the region, as well as commercial airliners headed for Southern California from across the country.

"On April 30, 2014, an FAA air traffic system that processes flight plan information experienced problems while processing a flight plan filed for a U-2 aircraft that operates at very high altitudes under visual flight rules," FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said in a written statement issued by the agency.

Lunsford said the computer system misinterpreted the U-2 as a more typical low-altitude operation and became overwhelmed in trying to make sure that its flight path did not conflict with other air traffic in the region.

"The FAA resolved the issue within an hour, and then immediately adjusted the system to now require specific altitude information for each flight plan," he said, adding that the agency had also taken steps to increase the amount of flight-processing memory available in the computer system.

"The FAA is confident these steps will prevent a reoccurrence of this specific problem and other potential similar issues going forward," Lunsford said.

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed that the U-2 spy plane had flown over Southern California last Wednesday as part of a routine training mission but said he could not confirm that it was responsible for the computer glitch.

"The U-2 filed all the proper flight plan paperwork and was conducting its operation in accordance with those filings," Army Colonel Steve Warren said, adding that it was not unusual for the plane to be flying over the area.

Warren said the incident had not prompted the military to change the way it conducted such operations.

Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, California; John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California; and McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas were among other facilities affected by the order to keep planes grounded.

So were flights in other parts of the country that were bound for the wide swath of airspace in the southwestern United States managed by the center.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Ken Wills and Eric Walsh)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/06/us-usa-airport-losangeles-idUSBREA4501C20140506