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FAA NOTAM System Outage

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Re: FAA NOTAM System Outage

#61

Post by reaperducer »

Very entertaining to watch the local TV news this morning.

The reporter keeps pulling people aside as they arrive at the airport and asking them what they're going to do with all the planes grounded.

None of them know it's happening.

So far, they have all admitted that they either don't look at the news, or don't look at the local news, except for one woman who defiantly said, "It wasn't on Facebook," as if that meant that since the grounded flights weren't in her social media feed that it wasn't real.

Re: FAA NOTAM System Outage

#62

Post by ilyt »

nkcmr wrote: post #47

Why do all aviation IT systems feel like they are so fragile? It feels like not a single month can pass these days without some "Airline X has major outage and ruins tons of people's days!" story on the news. What is the tech behind these frail systems?

That's the curse of niche software. Especially one made to fit, it's easy for penny pincher to decide "it works fine now, it doesn't need ongoing improvements" and you end up with some ancient shit needing java 1.7 (or worse) to run with no plan to upgrade.

Re: FAA NOTAM System Outage

#63

Post by unionemployee »

The NOTAM system is embarrassing. This just tops it off. Actually, our whole ATC system and the way the FAA operates is embarrassing. It all works kind of like waste management in NYC. If they were to add new tech and efficiency, fewer people would have jobs, so we keep doing it the old way to the detriment of everyone else.

Re: FAA NOTAM System Outage

#64

Post by chucksmash »

perihelions wrote: post #57
zrail wrote: post #2

As of 06:24 US Eastern the appears to no longer be true. There is a NOTAM outage but no full ground stop is mentioned, just a few specific due to weather. Edit: obviously a developing situation, see responses to this comment for current advisories.

- "All US domestic flights have been grounded for several hours because of a glitch with the flight control system." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64236047

Yep, the situation has changed since the post was made. Parent comment was correct at the time, however.

At 5:40am Eastern, the agent at my departure gate told us that there was a ground stop affecting all flights, which was reflected in my original title. This was not reflected in the NOTAM I posted, as was pointed out by several early commenters, and in fact my flight was able to board and depart around 7:00am Eastern before the ground stop took effect.

Re: FAA NOTAM System Outage

#65

Post by trelane »

VLM wrote: post #60
nkcmr wrote: post #47

Why do all aviation IT systems feel like they are so fragile? It feels like not a single month can pass these days without some "Airline X has major outage and ruins tons of people's days!" story on the news. What is the tech behind these frail systems?

All hyper optimized systems become fragile until they collapse. The NOTAM system is ridiculous, no surprise it collapsed ... you can lose your ticket for flying thru a MOA that went active AFTER you took off. What could possibly go wrong with a "push" notification system for every tiny little detail of aerospace scheduling? No force is as destructive as the good idea fairy.

For those who also didn't know, MOA: https://tfmlearning.faa.gov/publications/atpubs/AIR/air2501....

Re: FAA NOTAM System Outage

#66

Post by Buffout »

srmarm wrote: post #43
dx034 wrote: post #38

There's a ground stop for all flights now. GROUND STOP ALL FLIGHTS / ALL DESTINATIONS EXCLUDES MILITARY AC AND MEDEVAC FLIGHTS DESTINATION AIRPORT; ALL FACILITIES INCLUDED: ALL GROUND STOP PERIOD: UNTIL 1430Z REASON: EQUIPMENT OUTAGE REMARKS: US NOTAMS SYSTEM DOWN

This might be a silly question, but is that a NOTAM saying that NOTAM system is down? How does it get out?

NOTAM is a notice to alert aircraft pilots of potential hazards along a flight route...

Command control can see that NOTAM system is out and publish advisory. (Not via NOTAM system)

Re: FAA NOTAM System Outage

#67

Post by watersb »

REALLY IMPORTANT NOTAMS tend to alert pilots to RESTRICTED AIRSPACE or AREAS OF UNUSUAL AIR OPERATIONS. You can't fly anywhere near the President of the United States, the movements of which can change from day to day.

We get NOTAMS about military aircraft operations; often military airspace which is usually permitted may be shut down for a week or so.

Wildfire tanker operations or other natural emergencies can close an airspace.

It's quite dynamic, all on top of the scheduled flight plans and routes.

Re: FAA NOTAM System Outage

#68

Post by VLM »

kzrdude wrote: post #37

ATC can tell pilots what they need to know, right?

Its a flight planning mystery.

Lets say you are not flying to, but flying by, my hometown airport. You decide arbitrarily to use it as a divert in case of awful weather or engine trouble enroute or you just want a bathroom break (this is more of a Cessna 172 airport than a 747 airport)

I found a cached list of nine current NOTAMs for my home airport. Because its always better to overinform than to underinform, until the system overloads and crashes:

A long ramble that boils down to you can't use one of the IFR plates for a helicopter approach because of (its a very long story but relates to the crane mentioned below)

The modulation level on the closest VOR for identification/verification is low, although in legal tolerance, so you can use it but please stop trying to open the equivalent of a trouble ticket. We know the volume is both technically legal although low and not "turned up all the way". The techs say its safe until new parts arrive.

There's three failed tower lights in the area (three? Supply chain problems? Labor problems? WTF?) and one temporary crane obstruction. The crane is flagged and lit, and could theoretically be 60 ft AGL which is normally below the legal limit but its on airport grounds 0.13 miles away from one runway off to the side, so please try not to hit it. Also please don't bother reporting a crane off to the side of the approach; we know all about it...

Clearance delivery for the "big city" airport nearby has a remote trans/rec site nearby that's broken. Legal coverage is adequate (kind of a RAID array of retrans sites) so please stop reporting the reduced signal strength, we already know.

There's some kind of flood on runway 10 when it very heavily rains; the groundskeepers will fix the drainage problem; the NWS reports 0% chance of rain today so it probably won't be an issue, but don't act all surprised. This is not a NOTAM for groundskeeper work, that would be a separate new NOTAM.

Re: FAA NOTAM System Outage

#69

Post by acdha »

unionemployee wrote: post #63

The NOTAM system is embarrassing. This just tops it off. Actually, our whole ATC system and the way the FAA operates is embarrassing. It all works kind of like waste management in NYC. If they were to add new tech and efficiency, fewer people would have jobs, so we keep doing it the old way to the detriment of everyone else.

It’s easy to say things are about jobs but do we have any evidence of that? There’s a modernization project underway at the FAA so I’d bet that if you looked there’s someone who’s been trying for years to get attention on it before something like this happened.

Re: FAA NOTAM System Outage

#70

Post by jxf »

Q: Is there anything like a systems architecture diagram for how NOTAM works? I'm curious about which parts might have failed and what the moving pieces are.
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