Air traffic failure caused by two locations 3600nm apart sharing 3-letter code • Hacker News Board

Re: Air traffic failure caused by two locations 3600nm apart sharing 3-letter code

#21

Post by perihelions » Mon, Nov 18, 2024, 5:05 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #13

There's been some prior discussion on this over the past year, here are a few I found (selected based on comment count, haven't re-read the discussions yet): From the day of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37292406 - 33 points by woodylondon on Aug 28, 2023 (23 comments) Discussions after: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37401864 - 22 points by bigjump on Sept 6, 2023 (19 comments) https://news.ycombinator…

There's also a much larger one,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37461695 ("UK air traffic control meltdown (jameshaydon.github.io)", 446 comments)

Re: Air traffic failure caused by two locations 3600nm apart sharing 3-letter code

#22

Post by lxgr » Mon, Nov 18, 2024, 5:06 PM UTC

jordanb wrote: post #16

ipunchghosts wrote: post #8

Title should be nmi

I do a lot of navigation and have never seen nautical miles abbreviated as "nmi."

I bet not everybody on here does, so picking the unambiguous unit sign would definitely avoid some double-takes.

Re: Air traffic failure caused by two locations 3600nm apart sharing 3-letter code

#23

Post by _pete_ » Mon, Nov 18, 2024, 5:07 PM UTC

The DVL really is in the details.

Re: Air traffic failure caused by two locations 3600nm apart sharing 3-letter code

#24

Post by snakeyjake » Mon, Nov 18, 2024, 5:09 PM UTC

jp57 wrote: post #9

FYI: nm = nautical miles, not nanometers.

[flagged]

Re: Air traffic failure caused by two locations 3600nm apart sharing 3-letter code

#25

Post by dietr1ch » Mon, Nov 18, 2024, 5:10 PM UTC

jp57 wrote: post #9

FYI: nm = nautical miles, not nanometers.

Thanks, from the title I was confused on why there was such a high resolution on positions.

Re: Air traffic failure caused by two locations 3600nm apart sharing 3-letter code

#26

Post by remram » Mon, Nov 18, 2024, 5:10 PM UTC

snakeyjake wrote: post #24

jp57 wrote: post #9

FYI: nm = nautical miles, not nanometers.

[flagged]

I assumed it probably wasn't nanometers but I have no idea what a nautical mile is.

Turns out 3600 NM = 6666 km

Re: Air traffic failure caused by two locations 3600nm apart sharing 3-letter code

#27

Post by contravariant » Mon, Nov 18, 2024, 5:13 PM UTC

snakeyjake wrote: post #24

jp57 wrote: post #9

FYI: nm = nautical miles, not nanometers.

[flagged]

Well, I certainly read nanometers, but I have to admit I may not be mentally well.

Re: Air traffic failure caused by two locations 3600nm apart sharing 3-letter code

#28

Post by ryandrake » Mon, Nov 18, 2024, 5:13 PM UTC

steeeeeve wrote: post #15

You know there's a software engineer somewhere that saw this as a potential problem, brought up a solution, and had that solution rejected because handling it would add 40 hours of work to a project.

... or there's a software engineer somewhere who simply assumed that three letter navaid identifiers were globally unique, and baked that assumption into the code.

I guess we now need a "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Aviation Data" site :)

Re: Air traffic failure caused by two locations 3600nm apart sharing 3-letter code

#29

Post by ortusdux » Mon, Nov 18, 2024, 5:14 PM UTC

snakeyjake wrote: post #24

jp57 wrote: post #9

FYI: nm = nautical miles, not nanometers.

[flagged]

Well TIL I must be illiterate or mentally unwell.

Re: Air traffic failure caused by two locations 3600nm apart sharing 3-letter code

#30

Post by lxgr » Mon, Nov 18, 2024, 5:15 PM UTC

egypturnash wrote: post #10

hobs wrote: post #7

People posting on this forum saying "ah well software's failure case isn't as bad" > This forced controllers to revert to manual processing, leading to more than 1,500 flight cancellations and delaying hundreds of services which did operate.

Zero fatalities though. You could do a lot worse for a massive air traffic control failure.

Unfortunately shutting down air traffic generally does not result in zero excess deaths: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3233376/