ATC Outages Becoming Far Too Common

Air Traffic Control (ATC) systems controlling all aircraft flying around the globe are mission critical operational and air safety systems where outages tend to cause chaos for carriers, airports and the flying public. These outages tend to have huge mega million dollar impacts easily.  We have experienced them here in the US and more recently in the UK where there were two within a short time frame.  A blip is one thing, extending for long periods of time is beyond merely unacceptable.

Systems and their critical component sub-systems whether in house or via an outside provider are all points of potential failure.  For starters, the core architecture in ATC systems is for the most part antiquated, but when functioning - does the job.  These systems are architected to have critical dependencies upon a various number of subsystems which can be data feed systems such as radar, weather, flight plans etc.  In addition, hardware components can and do fail, same for bad software changes being loaded and finally we have power sources.  ATC systems are dependent upon power needs from outside sources.  Typically all systems have backup battery power which automatically switches on when outside power feed is disrupted.  The larger systems tend to also have backup diesel generators to take over once the battery power until the outside power is restored ( a short period of time )  and the diesel generators have been cranked up and ready to supply power. 

The ATC systems need to be replaced especially for the largest of ATC locations. It will take time.  They are very complex entities. But one thing is quite evident with the current experienced outages is that ATC systems have inadequate or no failover capabilities in place - i.e. a backup automatically kicks in when a failure occurs to some key component thus having minimal time impact for some failed component.

In the case of the latest UK ATC failures, as usual, very little is ever reported as to the root cause.  The UK government appointed head of their ATC systems has failed miserably twice already.  The UK refuses to replace this gentlemen given he obviously is not qualified to meet the needs and expectations. 

Applying band-aid solutions do not work over time.