[outages] communication breakdown @ FAA

Tue Aug 26 16:42:31 EDT 2008

ATLANTA -- The Federal Aviation Administration said a communication failure
Tuesday at a Georgia facility that processes flight plans for the eastern
half of the U.S. was causing flight delays around the country.

An FAA Web site that posts airport status information showed delays at some
three dozen major airports coast-to-coast, advising passengers to "check
your departure airport to see if your flight may be affected."

FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen in Atlanta said there are no safety issues
and officials are still able to speak to pilots on planes on the ground and
in the air.

She said she doesn't know how many flights are being affected.

Bergen said the problem that occurred Tuesday afternoon involves an FAA
facility in Hampton, Ga., south of Atlanta, that processes flight plans.
She said there was a failure in a communication link that transmits the
data to a similar facility in Salt Lake City.

As a result, the Salt Lake City facility was having to process those flight
plans, causing delays in planes taking off. She said there were no problems
with planes landing.

"There will be flight delays," Bergen said. "It could be any location,
because one facility is now processing flight data for everybody."

A spokesman for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the
world's busiest airport, did not immediately return a call seeking comment
on the impact there. Bergen said officials at the Atlanta airport were
entering flight data manually to try to speed things up.

The communication failure was causing delays for departures and arrivals at
Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, according to
airport spokeswoman Cheryl Stewart. However, she did not have a number on
delays.

The FAA has asked that no new flight plans be filed, Stewart said. If an
airline has not filed a flight plan yet, that flight can't leave. However,
some flights had already filed their plans and those planes were being
allowed to depart, Stewart said.

Brenda Geoghagan, a spokeswoman for Tampa International Airport in Florida,
said "it may just be too soon" to determine the impact there. Christine
Osborn, another spokeswoman at the Tampa airport, said there have been no
delays due to the flight plan communication failure. But she said she
anticipates problems in the coming hours.

"There's definitely going to be some impact," she said.

At Miami International Airport, there were no delays or cancelations due to
the communication failure, said spokesman Marc Henderson.

"There are cancelations due to weather from the hurricane, but not due to
this," he said.

The National Airspace Data Interchange Network is a data communications
system for air traffic controllers. It's used to distribute flight plans
and allows controllers to know when planes are leaving, where they're going
and other details.

Allen Kenitzer, a western regional spokesman for the FAA, said the Utah
system could handle the extra load while workers tried to get the Atlanta
system back online, but it was expected to slow down air traffic.

"We're not going to let an unsafe condition exist. It's just going to be
slower," Kenitzer said.

             virendra rode //                                              
             <virendra.rode at gm                                             
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             08/26/2008 03:10          FAA                                 
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             virendra.rode at gma                                             
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Does anyone have any further information regarding this failure?

Apparently the outage occurred at FAA facility in Hampton, Ga., that
processes flight plans.

regards,
/virendra
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