Radar fails in Memphis; hundreds of flights affected

[lovuian]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/25/memphis.air.snafu/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

TLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Air traffic controllers were forced to use their personal cell phones to reroute hundreds of flights Tuesday after the Federal Aviation Administration's Memphis Center lost radar and telephone service for more than two hours, snarling air traffic in the middle of the nation.
art.fedex.plane.gi.jpg

The FAA's Memphis Center lost communication service Tuesday, affecting FedEx flights and others.

A spokesman for FedEx, which has its hub in Memphis, Tennessee, said the package delivery company had diverted 11 aircraft to other cities. But most of its flights take off and land after 10 p.m., so FedEx expected the impact to be minimal, the spokesman said.

Air traffic was halted at 12:35 p.m. ET when a major communication line that feeds all the telephones at the FAA's Memphis Center failed, said FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen.

Service was restored at 3 p.m.

The malfunction, which occurred inside a telephone company's switching office, made it impossible for air controllers at FAA's Memphis Center to communicate normally with adjoining centers to hand off control of flights, Bergen said.

In addition, three of nine long-range radar systems were lost, causing the FAA to temporarily ground traffic within a 250-mile radius of the center, affecting flights in seven states, Bergen said.

Adjacent centers in Atlanta, Georgia; Indianapolis, Indiana; Kansas City, Missouri; and Fort Worth, Texas; were pitching in to try to reroute planes, she said.

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One little phone line Amazing Homeland Security is such a joke

[MadMaddie]

1. How is this possible? Homeland Security is only to spy on

Americans it is not for protecting the US Insfrastructure.

They had no backup phone system are you kidding me? They had to use their cell phones. It took the Phone company 2 hours to fix this?

Complete Failure...

[lovuian]

2. thats what I'm saying too No BACKUP what the hell after 911

its six years and we have this crap

[MadMaddie]

3. This is beyond incompetence this is criminal....

[AndyTiedye]

4. I Thought They Had These Things Called Radios to Talk to the Planes

[nealmhughes]

5. Key little word "a" in the article gives it away: they had no redundant system for comms!

Onboard ships there are a "port and starboard" everything, for a reason. . . so that a single component failure does not result in system wide failure.

[ruiner4u]

6. Ernestine is at it again!!!!

We handle eighty-four billion calls a year. Serving everyone from presidents and kings to the scum of the earth. We realize that every so often you can't get an operator, for no apparent reason your phone goes out of order, or perhaps you get charged for a call you didn't make.

We don't care.

Watch this.. < she hits buttons maniacally > ..just lost Peoria.

You see, this phone system consists of a multibillion-dollar matrix of space age technology that is so sophisticated, even we can't handle it. But that's your problem, isn't it? Next time you complain about your phone service, why don't you try using two Dixie cups with a string?

We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company.