Computer outage delays United flights at O’Hare
An outage of United’s check-in system caused delays at Chicago’s O’Hare earlier today, as reported by Chicago Breaking News:
FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said that United had ordered a ground stop of its planes on its own that ended at 7:55 a.m. The problem began about 5:15 a.m., she said.
United had told the FAA that it was a computer issue that made the airline unable to check in people for flights and resulted in an inability to get final flight information to the cockpit, Cory said.
“I only remember in my 10 years one other time” that computer glitches have caused this much trouble with flights, Cory said.
By about 9 a.m., an airline spokeswoman said that it was manually checking in travelers through mobile units and laptop computers to facilitate check-in for as many customers as possible, Szadokierski said. To get around the computer glitch, agents at the check-counters also called agents at other airport to have them check in travelers, with O’Hare agents then writing out boarding passes, she said.
The problems have since been addressed, but it took several hours and caused significant delays and some cancellations for travelers shortly before the beginning of 4th of July weekend. Larger-scale flight delays at major airports tend to have ripple effects, as schedules at many other connecting airports become affected.
This is also really expensive. In 2007 alone, flight delays were estimated to have cost the economy more than $40B.
Baggage system error delays thousands at London’s Heathrow
Problems with the baggage system at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 prevented numerous people from checking in for their British Airways flights on July 28.
Hundreds of British Airways passengers were left stranded at Heathrow Terminal 5 last night after the baggage system collapsed again.
Thousands more furious travellers faced severe delays and – amid chaotic scenes – many had to travel with only hand luggage.
This affected an estimated 5000 travelers and caused both delays and expenses for many. It is also not the first time that significant baggage handling problems disrupted operations at Terminal 5. Gizmodo’s Why: Heathrow Airport Terminal 5’s High Tech Failings discusses the problems that arose, just as the Terminal was opened early last year.
Brisbane airport shut down due to radar failure
Air traffic at Brisbane Airport was disrupted for a duration of about 40 minutes earlier today:
A data processing unit fault at Brisbane Airport had triggered an alert, with all flights in and out of Brisbane halted as a result.
Incoming flights from places such as Fiji and Coffs Harbour were diverted to Coolangatta Airport or put in a holding pattern over Brisbane for almost 40 minutes.
The problem has since been fixed and regular traffic control restored.
MIT Technology Review’s 2002 article on 10 Technology Disasters
MIT Technology Review published an article 10 Technology Disasters back in 2002:
What do a 17th-century Swedish warship, an opulent Chicago theater and a Kansas City hotel “skyway” have in common? All met catastrophic ends–and they have important lessons to teach today’s innovators.
Here is a list of the examined examples, along with reference links to Wikipedia (except for the AT&T crash).
- The Vasa sinking
- The Hyatt Regency walkway collapse
- The Iroquois Theater blaze
- The Eschede train derailment
- The Ashtabula Creek Bridge wreck
- The St. Francis Dam burst
- The Atlantic Empress/Aegean Captain collision
- The AT&T network crash
- The 1965 Northeast blackout
- The Concorde crash
We’ll take more in-depth looks at some of these and many other examples in future posts and articles.
Taiwan High Speed Trains Delayed
Taiwan News reports that technical problems at Tainan station caused delays for high speed train traffic today. Problems at a railroad switch prompted ordering southbound trains to pass by the station without stopping.
The problem began at 12:10 Sunday noon, just three minutes before a train was scheduled to enter Tainan station. The driver was immediately ordered not to stop, but to drive past the station first and then return.
Thanks to their ability to quickly modify a driver’s orders, delays were the only consequences here. There was another incident just this month, when high speed railroad traffic was disrupted by a faulty switch. Delays were more significant that time.
