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Spy Plane Fries Air Traffic Control Computers, Shuts Down LAX
NBC News ^ | May 2nd 2014 | Andrew Blankstein

Posted on 05/03/2014 1:15:20 PM PDT by george76

On Wednesday at about 2 p.m., according to sources, a 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. 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. 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.

As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration (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 and affected thousands of passengers.

...

There were also delays at the airports in Burbank, Long Beach, Ontario and Orange County and at other airports across the Southwestern U.S.

(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; US: California
KEYWORDS: aerospace; aircraft; airliners; aviation; u2
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To: <1/1,000,000th%

Practicing for martial law and CWII.


61 posted on 05/03/2014 8:10:04 PM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose o f a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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To: Moonman62
“Fry” isn’t the correct word.

Yes - it made me look for the use of heavy duty RADAR or jamming. Instead, the unit just beat itself to death - "Toast" probably applies....

62 posted on 05/04/2014 3:45:31 AM PDT by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: 04-Bravo; 1FASTGLOCK45; 1stFreedom; 2ndDivisionVet; 2sheds; 60Gunner; 6AL-4V; A.A. Cunningham; ...
Aviation and Aerospace ping

Click here to view: Highlights in the History of Aviation and Aerospace - The Past, The Present, and The Future

Please ping me to aviation and aerospace articles. Thank you.

If you want added to or removed from this ping list, please contact EveningStar or Paleo Conservative.

63 posted on 05/04/2014 9:25:49 AM PDT by EveningStar
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To: AgThorn; al baby; BAW; bboop; BenLurkin; Bob J; Bon of Babble; Brad's Gramma; BunnySlippers; ...
SoCal Ping!

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64 posted on 05/04/2014 9:31:30 AM PDT by EveningStar
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To: mountainlion

Sounds like U2K to me.


65 posted on 05/04/2014 10:00:38 AM PDT by onedoug
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To: who_would_fardels_bear
Or more likely, the U2 has systems, accidentally turned on, that "confuses" ground radar, as to the actual location of the aircraft.

As I recall, there was one time that an EA-6B prowler switched on it's ECM systems off the East Coast, and shut pretty much shut down ATC radar all up and down the east coast.

Mark

66 posted on 05/04/2014 10:06:15 AM PDT by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
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To: Hot Tabasco
I didn't notice any problem. In fact, not only did my microwave oven continue to function but my watch also successfully changed the date to 1/1/2000 without blowing up my wrist.......

Thanks to Y2K testing, we learned that a certain municipal fueling station (for police & fire vehicles) would have failed on 1/1/2000, and we contacted the manufacturer of the pumps and auditing systems for an update.

In the simulation, the pumps simply stopped working.

Mark

67 posted on 05/04/2014 10:14:58 AM PDT by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

Military air traffic out of Nellis AFB passes thu this air traffic control system every day and has done so for many many years. U-2’s, SR-71’s, RF-4C’s etc. if this were a real fault it would be happening all the time and have been corrected.

So either they had a component failure or this was human error.


68 posted on 05/04/2014 10:26:18 AM PDT by Tallguy
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To: diogenes ghost

Thank you for telling us the real story. What a misleading headline.


69 posted on 05/04/2014 11:13:43 AM PDT by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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To: JRandomFreeper
I bought a decade's worth of TP back then, because I had my daughters at home, a wife, and her daughter.

I didn't buy TP again until last year.

I call BS. I have a wife, and judging by the rate in which she goes through toilet paper, then multiplying by four for the presence of at least four women in your household, you'd have to had to had bought at minimum 2 truckloads of TP in order for it to last 13 years.

The math doesn't lie.

70 posted on 05/04/2014 11:22:12 AM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: EQAndyBuzz; who_would_fardels_bear

The number was likely stored as an “unsigned integer” in 2 bytes, meaning the max value would be 64535 ... plenty for practically all air traffic, but “rolling over” (subtracting 64536 until it fits) for anything over that. This was long the norm in programming. So...a U2 comes by at 85000 ft, registers as 20000 ft, and lots of traffic around that level goes into a panic.


71 posted on 05/04/2014 11:26:55 AM PDT by ctdonath2 ("If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun" - Obama, setting RoE with his opposition)
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To: george76

LAX needs a shorter leash.


72 posted on 05/04/2014 11:34:51 AM PDT by familyop
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

I’ve been on passenger jets where the captain has announce that we will be cruising at 34,000. So a computer that couldn’t handle altitudes over 32,768 couldn’t handle routine flight operations.


73 posted on 05/04/2014 11:45:10 AM PDT by PAR35
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To: george76; All

“Fried the computers???”

I find it unlikely any hardware was fried, but I can see that if the software went into a “loop”, and tried repeatedly query the contact, and run any de-conflict, or collision avoidance issue looking at it in a “2D” environment, it does seem like our ATC system is again starting to fail us...

It is already, probably, going to have deadly results before anything is really done about this...


74 posted on 05/04/2014 11:53:13 AM PDT by stevie_d_64 (It's not the color of one's skin that offends people...it's how thin it is.)
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To: USNBandit
"Thank you..."

You are quite welcome, Sir.

As an aviation professional, it often seems the media is only interested in sensationalism, not the often boring facts.

But I'm sure other professions suffer the same treatment.

75 posted on 05/04/2014 12:07:04 PM PDT by diogenes ghost
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Comment #76 Removed by Moderator

To: Hot Tabasco; mountainlion
"I didn't notice any [Y2K] problem."

You guys didn't notice the problem because thousands of programmers like me took care of it, thank you very much. I was part of the generation that created the "problem" in the first place (out of necessity) and we were also the ones to solve it. So yes, there was a Y2K problem, just like there were WMDs in Iraq.

77 posted on 05/04/2014 12:23:55 PM PDT by Da Bilge Troll (Defeatism is not a winning strategy!)
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To: diogenes ghost

When you read about aviation in the media and you see the gross incaccuraccies it confirms your suspicions about the rest of the reporting.


78 posted on 05/04/2014 12:33:36 PM PDT by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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To: Yo-Yo

I got divorced a year later, so it was just for a single guy. Your argument is invalid.

It lasted a decade.

/johnny


79 posted on 05/04/2014 12:56:25 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: george76

Must have been aliens....


80 posted on 05/04/2014 1:02:05 PM PDT by Rockitz (This is NOT rocket science - Follow the money and you'll find the truth.)
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