Air Traffic Control failure across UK

[East Level 2]

Nothing to do with ADS-B.
It was a problem related to the automatic submission of flight plans into the system that needed to be processed manually instead.

Comment on the radio this morning was that the automatic submission of flight plans was around ten times faster than manual submission.

 

[chaddblue]

Flying home tomorrow. 3 out of 7 jet 2 flights from Gran Canaria to the UK cancelled today so hopefully even less tomorrow. Spoke to the Jet 2 rep in reception and although he couldn’t give us any assurances ours won’t be cancelled he said if it was he guarantees they’d find us accommodation and get us on the next available flight all at their expense

 

[Gundoggin]

Flying home tomorrow. 3 out of 7 jet 2 flights from Gran Canaria to the UK cancelled today so hopefully even less tomorrow. Spoke to the Jet 2 rep in reception and although he couldn’t give us any assurances ours won’t be cancelled he said if it was he guarantees they’d find us accommodation and get us on the next available flight all at their expense

You can choose a flight of your choice to get home don’t just accept any flight from the company you traveled with . They will pay for your hotel accommodation ( B&B only) and any airport transfer costs aswell . You can also claim for expenses accrued ( meals etc ) when you get home .

 

[inbetween]

Here is a perfect example of a little bit of knowledge leading to a post that is so inaccurate on so many levels. The failure had nothing to with ADSB-B.

NATS en-route controllers do indeed have their "own receivers"-it's called radar, and is what we use everyday. Funnily enough they are"physical" radars that we use, in that they are actually there in front of us. The radar picture is processed in such a manner that a controller can see aircraft several hundred miles away should they wish to do so. Transferring aircraft between sectors is done electronically, and yesterdays failure would have absolutely no effect on that.

Need I go on?........................

Fair enough I stand very much corrected. I assumed ADS-B because aircraft movements were significantly altered, aren't you using ADS-B to control on the ground nowadays?

Out of interest, again why would this require a limitation on aircraft movements? It seems odd that a simple flightplan system processing failure would basically take down the entire UK air traffic system or at least seriously hamper the ability to do anything.

How was it done 20-30 years ago when these systems didn't exist?

 

[BlueAnorak]

Comment on the radio this morning was that the automatic submission of flight plans was around ten times faster than manual submission.

Yeah the French ATC input overloaded an interface apparantly. A shit interface that needs properly monitoring and sorting it would appear.
Files aren't transfered as such, just file contents via an electronic buffer interface (one of the he few integrations with the isolated resiliant NAT system proper).

Not ADS-B as such a transfer system for planes from one countries ATC to another in this case from Fench ATC to UK ATC. Manual processes couldn't cope doing this by hand.

 

[west didsblue]

Yeah the French ATC input overloaded the interface apparantly. A shit interface that needs properly monitoring and sorting it would appear.
File aren't transfered as such, just the file contents via an electronic buffer interface (one of the he few integrations with the isolated resiliant NAT system proper).

The problem is likely to be that the processing of flight plans automatically is not safety critical due to manual backups being available in the event of failure. This means the extra investment required to add redundancy in the event of a failure such as this would have been difficult to justify. Now that this has happened the economic case for doing it has now been proven. If a more thorough assessment had been made in the first place it would have likely been justified but it won’t have had the same scrutiny as a safety critical system, and instinctive penny pinching would have made it difficult to secure the investment when they can hope for the best instead without impacting safety.

 

[west didsblue]

Fair enough I stand very much corrected. I assumed ADS-B because aircraft movements were significantly altered, aren't you using ADS-B to control on the ground nowadays?

Out of interest, again why would this require a limitation on aircraft movements? It seems odd that a simple flightplan system processing failure would basically take down the entire UK air traffic system or at least seriously hamper the ability to do anything.

How was it done 20-30 years ago when these systems didn't exist?

Presumably, when flight plans were filed manually there were more people doing it, and they would have been redeployed during the automation process.

 

[dadnlad]

How was it done 20-30 years ago when these systems didn't exist?

they had map of country and pushed bits of cork with tags on round with big sticks

 

[Cricket Blue]

Is it me or can people not cope with a crisis or incident these days and then sob to to the press, why are people so needy?
I mean it's rubbish but shit happens that you have to deal with at times.
I mean a read a story before saying someone will be stuck in Tenerife for a few days, if you can't stay in Tenerife then why not look at getting a flight to Paris and then getting the Euro star.?

 

[hampshireblue]

Fair enough I stand very much corrected. I assumed ADS-B because aircraft movements were significantly altered, aren't you using ADS-B to control on the ground nowadays?

Out of interest, again why would this require a limitation on aircraft movements? It seems odd that a simple flightplan system processing failure would basically take down the entire UK air traffic system or at least seriously hamper the ability to do anything.

How was it done 20-30 years ago when these systems didn't exist?

Good of you to come here again on the matter.

So first of all, I've been retired for 5 years so some technical changes will obviously have taken place.

ADSB-B : Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) is a surveillance technology and form of Electronic Conspicuity in which an aircraft determines its position via satellite navigation or other sensors and periodically broadcasts it, enabling it to be tracked. The information can be received by air traffic control ground stations as a replacement for secondary surveillance radar, as no interrogation signal is needed from the ground. It can also be transmitted and received point-to-point by other aircraft to provide situational awareness and allow self-separation. ADS-B is "automatic" in that it requires no pilot or external input. It is "dependent" in that it depends on data from the aircraft's navigation system.

At present it is being used mainly in areas where there has traditionally been no radar coverage-think UK-North America/South America as a good example. It has allowed the pre-determined "daily tracks" that airlines fly over the ocean to be brought closer together than when there was no method of surveillance. This allows more aircraft to fly on their preferred track at their preferred altitude and therefore allows a more efficient flight profile and therefore better fuel savings.

As for limitations on capacity: each sector will have a declared capacity. it may be anything from 40-60 hour depending on complexity of the airspace,interaction with the military and other factors. Now on a really good day, with good weather, no bunching of traffic, similar types, no military activity, even though the declared capacity is say, 50, it maybe that when the stats are looked at, significantly more than that will have been shifted. If however any of the previous factors, or a system issue is present, then that 50 may be reduced to say, 30. That clearly has a knock on effect quite quickly. Add to that, that if aircraft can't take off because of a system issue, they occupy a stand for longer than anticipated and therefore inbounds have nowhere to park when they have landed. But also bear in mind that traffic already airborne to the UK and crucially overflying the UK, will have to be handled no matter what happens to the system, so the only way to reduce capacity is to restrict those that are still on the ground in Europe.

Was it like this 30 years ago you ask? No,it was alot worse. Slots were allocated by hand and passed to airlines and control towers individually by phone. It was not unusual to miss a slot and suffer a 3 hour delay. Today, under normal circumstances, that delay would be a matter of minutes,not hours.

Enough typing for now but I hope you find it useful.