That white-knuckle week in Chicago was only the latest in an alarming series of computer failures at the nation’s air-traffic control centers (chart). The problem, simply, is old age. The systems that run the radar screens at the five busiest regional facilities-Chicago, New York, Washington, Fort Worth and Cleveland-date to the 1960s, the technological equivalent of the Bronze Age. The big 9020E units break down unpredictably and aren’t easy to fix. IBM no longer makes some spare parts, and many of the FAA technicians who knew how to repair them have retired or died. Even when they are functioning, the 9020Es sometimes behave strangely. Washington center controller David Carmichael says planes sometimes vanish temporarily from the radar screens. Sometimes the radar “sees” planes that aren’t there. On July 1, six phantom blips suddenly appeared on Carmichael’s screen, all moving eastbound at different altitudes and speeds. “I was absolutely sure they were aircraft, heading straight into oncoming traffic,” he says. Pilots in the area were notified, and some quickly veered from their flight plans to avoid possible collisions. Then the phantom squadron just disappeared.
Controllers are even more unnerved when the ground-to-air radio equipment they use to communicate with pilots fails. A year ago in New York, La Guardia Airport lost all radio frequencies for more than two hours–forcing the tower to talk to planes using handheld battery-operated radios. Sometimes controllers lose radar and radio contact simultaneously, as some did when the power failed at the New York regional center on May 25, just as red-eye flights from the West Coast were arriving. Controllers watched in horror on one still-functioning screen as two planes headed for each other at 33,000 feet. They frantically called another FAA facility, which alerted one pilot to descend. “The equipment needs to be replaced from top to bottom,” says longtime Chicago controller Lauren McCormack, who’s quitting his $85,000-a-year job because he feels he can’t guarantee safety. The FAA, he says, “is playing Russian roulette.”
FAA officials, who once dismissed such comments as grumbling-as-usual from controllers, now agree the situation is urgent. “It’s our top priority to replace [the computers] quickly,” says Monte Belger, associate administrator for air-traffic control. But “quick” is relative in FAA-speak: the agency began an ambitious modernization in the early 1980s that was supposed to cost $4.3 billion and be ready in 1993. Cost overruns, mismanagement and complex government purchasing rules have pushed the completion date to 2003 and the price tag to nearly $40 billion. Seattle won’t get the first new computer system until 1997. Chicago, Washington and New York will get theirs in 1998-provided there are no more delays.
This week the Senate will hold hearings on the sorry state of the system. But Transportation Secretary Federico Pena says Congress is partly to blame; he’s lobbying for laws that would let the FAA buy equipment with less red tape. Controllers, meanwhile, hold FAA managers responsible–and everyone is crossing their fingers that the system can be dragged into the 1990s before computer crashes in the control rooms turn into plane crashes in the skies.
Chicago: The area’s regional center lost its main computer system three times in July.
Miami: A new radar system for tower controllers has failed 12 times since January.
New York: A power failure in May knocked out the regional center’s radar and radio contact with planes.
San Juan: In June the area’s regional center twice lost all radio and radar coverage.
Washington: Radios fail regularly, while “phantom” aircraft sometimes appear on radar.
