FAA Computer Glitch Causes Flight Delays

[HardOCP News]

The nation's air-traffic control system apparently suffered a computer malfunction / failure that caused severe flight delays along the east coast earlier today.

A computer system in Atlanta that processes pilots' flights plans and sends them to air-traffic controllers failed late Thursday or early Friday, FAA spokeswoman Diane Spitaliere said. The agency rerouted the system's functions to another computer in Salt Lake City, which overloaded due to the increased volume of data, magnifying the problem.

 

[Shotglass01]

Microsoft responded by saying Vista is the most secure operating system ever out of the box. A Microsoft source said "Our first concern isn't that planes don't crash into each other, it's security."

 

[knight3058]

Here's the bigger question, what were the specs of the machines that crashed? Pentium IIs? For stuff this necessary, you should have systems that have plenty of overhead to handle possible situations such as this.

 

[LeTUOtter]

Microsoft responded by saying Vista is the most secure operating system ever out of the box. A Microsoft source said "Our first concern isn't that planes don't crash into each other, it's security."

Yeah. It's so secure that not even YOU can use it!

I half expected the FAA to be running something other than windows (the article didn't mention, but I'd like to know what they really ARE running). I mean, duh it's the ubiquitous OS, but stuff like this could get people killed, ya know?

 

[Shotglass01]

I'd like to know what they really ARE running). I mean, duh it's the ubiquitous OS, but stuff like this could get people killed, ya know?

I wouldn't know that one, but they've got to have something pretty solid. I mean I think their track record for keeping track of all those flights on a daily 24 hour basis is pretty good. I'm sure it's some kind of custom written software.

 

[Wwhat]

Oh they got computers in atlanta now eh.