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All flights in the United States are grounded until further notice,

Trump & Musk biographer has a rundown o f the press conference. It was "interesting".


Interested Go On GIF by reactionseditor
 
I watched the presser with the Secretaries of Transportation and DHS. Apparently, many elements of their system are pretty old and a software update caused some cascading failures. Updates on live networked systems are the nightmare scenario of system managers. They have brought down Bell and Rogers to name two.

As an aside, it must be in the Cabinet manual that they must praise Trump at least once per paragraph.
 
Why the hell would you push a big update on a Friday afternoon versus like overnight on Tuesday or something? Am I alone in finding that bizarre?
 
Why the hell would you push a big update on a Friday afternoon versus like overnight on Tuesday or something? Am I alone in finding that bizarre?
I thought I read that they pushed the update out Wednesday, but it took 24-36hrs for the problems to emerge.
 
Why the hell would you push a big update on a Friday afternoon versus like overnight on Tuesday or something? Am I alone in finding that bizarre?
possibly because the system was going to crash at some unpredictable point if they didn't. The FAA started work on a new system in 2003: called it nextgen. As of 2024 when the office closed they had achieved less than 20% of their stated goals. Without going into great detail, the goal was to replace the airways structure and RADAR tracking with ADS-B and GPS routes. This was largely successful as far as the software was concerned but the programming was layered onto decades old systems and it simply wasn't possible to re-fit enough of the older fleets of aircraft to operate on the new format. The owners weren't about to invest in systems that wouldn't provide payback until the FAA updated their ground systems to match so the system never reached that critical point where they could switch over. Their estimates on software costs didn't even begin to cover the reality (my fears regarding HS trains incidentally) so hardware updates largely went by the wayside. Consequently procedures couldn't be changed to reflect the new software.
 
As I wrote earlier the disadvantage to centralization. One group of cables in a remote location and it took down the entire system. I would assign some of the blame to the people who originally designed it without building in the ability to change equipment and wiring harnesses out and verify acceptance in total isolation.
 
I saw a funny clip of UK stand-up comedian Jimmy Carr about the disruption of flights and he said America's parents are pissed. First it lost its internet privileges and then it was grounded.

Somebody said on FB than when Mullin was a senator during the Biden administration, he voted against a $X Bn bill to upgrade FAA systems. Unknown if that is true.

Nothing in the US is non-partisan..
 
I think a more likely reason for the ATC calamity is tied to the possible cyber attack that Microsoft suffered before hand. After all doesn’t the ATC run on Microsoft? No one would likely admit that ATC could be hacked, that would destroy the public faith.
 
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