Spy Plane Fries Air Traffic Control Computers, Shuts Down LAX

[Jesus Malverde]

Source: NBC

A relic from the Cold War appears to have triggered a software glitch at a major air traffic control center in California Wednesday that led to delays and cancellations of hundreds of flights across the country, sources familiar with the incident told NBC News.

On Wednesday at about 2 p.m., according to sources, a U-2 spy plane, the same type of aircraft that flew high-altitude spy missions over Russia 50 years ago, passed through the airspace monitored by the L.A. Air Route Traffic Control Center in Palmdale, Ca. The L.A. Center handles landings and departures at the region’s major airports, including Los Angeles International (LAX), San Diego and Las Vegas.

The computers at the L.A. Center are programmed to keep commercial airliners and other aircraft from colliding with each other. The U-2 was flying at 60,000 feet, but the computers were attempting to keep it from colliding with planes that were actually miles beneath it.

Though the exact technical causes are not known, the spy plane’s altitude and route apparently overloaded a computer system called ERAM, which generates display data for air-traffic controllers. Back-up computer systems also failed.

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/spy-plane-fries-air-traffic-control-computers-shuts-down-lax-n95886

[Charlos]

1. Oh my

What a disaster.

[951-Riverside]

2. ...as usual nothing will happen and no one will be held accountable n/t

[Cooley Hurd]

3. The fault lies with ATC computers...

...not with the U-2.

[Jesus Malverde]

4. Unless there were electronic counter measures they are not talking about...nt

[A Simple Game]

10. Just what I was thinking. Nothing would support a bombing mission better

than knocking out the enemies radar and tracking computers before the bombers got within radar range.

This may have been a successful trial run. Next stop Iran.

[EX500rider]

13. U2 is a spy plane, not a Wild Weasel...

....and i doubt the US Air Force would practice your scenario on one of the busiest airports in the world.

[A Simple Game]

15. Of course you are right.

We know the U2 is incapable of doing any such damage and our military is incapable of doing anything like what I described.

Obviously the U2 can only be armed with cameras, nothing else, and our government or military has never done anything detrimental to the general public. Please forget I ever mentioned it.

[hack89]

19. Your ill informed paranoia is getting the best of you

Sometime a cigar is just a cigar.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

23. But this is not a pipe.

[Exultant Democracy]

32. Unfortunately for all of us, the worst possible scenario becomes less and less unlikely everyday

for everything. We are pretty far along the path on the other side of the looking glass. Our government and its various agencies do far more fuckeduped shit then we could ever expect.

[EX500rider]

22. Yes, I know I am right, glad you agree...lol

The 59 year old U-2 is a unlikely candidate for a new jamming and sensor spoofing plane as it only has one person aboard and not much room for lots of new sensors and computers AND is about to be retired. The Israelis have such a plane and they use a 40 ton Gulfstream with 6 operators not including the flight crew.

[paleotn]

40. Exactly. (nt)

[paleotn]

36. Ummm, no. (nt)

[Jesus Malverde]

38. OK....

[paleotn]

39. No offense, but the simplest answer...

...is just buggy ATC software. That should surprise no one. Such equipment as you mentioned could conceivably be installed on a U-2, but I don't see the point. There are few better ways to announce one's presence than jamming an opponent's air defense systems. That's not the U-2's modus operandi. High, slow (just above stall speed) and quiet, unseen and unnoticed, loitering for a very long time is what the U-2 was designed to do. It was built to fly at extreme altitudes and handles like an awful bitch at anything below that, making it a very poor candidate for multi-tasking.

[Major Nikon]

8. Above 60,000' is supposed to be uncontrolled airspace anyway

https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/pilot_handbook/media/PHAK%20-%20Chapter%2014.pdf

[Bosonic]

5. Somebody forgot to create the U-2 unit test case

[Galileo126]

6. Just for clarification...

This is the Air Force's U-2, not NASA's ER-2s stationed in Palmdale. When I was stationed at the NASA facility in Palmdale (Dryden Airborne Ops Facility), when the AF's U-2 came by, it was guarded by heavily armed AF personnel. Why it was so guarded, we were never told. "Move along. Nothing to see here."

Look like "Old Black Betty" is doing her sham-ba-lam this weekend, eh?

[okaawhatever]

24. Maybe so. How long ago was it? If it was somewhat recent maybe they've found a second use for

the U2.

[KoKo]

7. Here's a bit more from article about the U-2 Spy Plane:

Sources told NBC News that the plane was a U-2 with a Defense Department flight plan. “It was a ‘Dragon Lady,’” said one source, using the nickname for the plane. Edwards Air Force Base is 30 miles north of the L.A. Center. Both Edwards and NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, which is located at Edwards, have been known to host U-2s and similar, successor aircraft.

The U.S. Air Force is still flying U-2s, but plans to retire them within the next few years.

Gary Hatch, spokesman for Edwards Air Force Base, would not comment on the Wednesday incident, but said, “There are no U-2 planes assigned to Edwards.”

A spokesperson for Dryden did not immediately return a call for comment.

Developed more than a half-century ago, the U-2 was once a workhorse of U.S. airborne surveillance. The plane’s “operational ceiling” is 70,000 feet. In 1960, Francis Gary Powers was flying a U-2 for the CIA over the Soviet Union when he was shot down. He was held captive by the Russians for two years before being exchanged for a KGB colonel in U.S. custody. A second U.S. U-2 was shot down over Cuba in 1962, killing the pilot.
First published May 2nd 2014, 2:43 pm

[Major Nikon]

9. This may have something to do with it

[okaawhatever]

25. Lolz. Love that. nt

[Festivito]

11. Legacy 16 bit integer handling too large a number?

We had this problem at work when we had a 75,000 square foot building. It was suddenly a 10,000 square foot building.

Nobody thought it would go that high.

And that was in the database declarations.

[ManiacJoe]

43. That was my first thought.

However, such a problem is not necessarily "legacy".

[Xithras]

49. I thought that too, but why now?

I've seen (and fixed) software bugs caused by 16 bit integer limitations, and at first it really does sound like that may have been the issue. I'm a bit puzzled by the fact that this has never happened before though. The U2 has been in service for nearly 60 years...this can't possibly be the first time one has flown over Los Angeles. How does a bug like that escape detection for so long?

[backscatter712]

12. Fried seems to be the wrong word. Crashed sounds more like it.

An ATC computer system crashing: Brings new meaning to "Blue screen of death"...

Sounds to me like the people maintaining the ERAM software need to do some bug-fixing...

[lostincalifornia]

14. Exactly. Fired is inappropriate. In fact this is an opportunity to examine other failure

Last edited Tue May 6, 2014, 12:20 PM - Edit history (1)

parameters when implementing the fix.

Thank goodness no one was injured, and it actually provides and excellent opportunity for better software

[snooper2]

54. They have to make the headline as sensationalist as possible

[DeSwiss]

16. ''Back-up computer systems also failed.''

- Your tax dollars on the fritz.

K&R

[TexasProgresive]

35. The backup computers are probably the same as the main computers

with the same operating system. If the U2 flying at 60K' caused one to crash it would do the same for the backups. My guess is that the programing in the computers was unable to deal with a plane at that altitude. They will fix this glitch and that will be the end of it. The fix will have to go out to other ATC groups.

As noted in another post the description "fried" is probably inappropriate, crashed would be the better description. Fried computers don't return to service even if reloaded.

[DeSwiss]

41. Garbage in, garbage out.

- Since the U2 is an Air Force spyplane, maybe they should explain why they were spying on LA? In fact, they should send them the bill when it's all fixed.

[ManiacJoe]

44. The U2 could easily be just passing through.

The USAF did not write the LAX software, so they will not be getting the bill to fix it.

[DeSwiss]

46. It all comes from the same pot. :-/ n/t

[hack89]

45. The U2s are based in California - have been for 50 years. Nt

[EX500rider]

51. To leave bases in Nevada and fly ANYWHERE overseas..

....will require flying over various bits of the US.
(just saw HACKS post, leaving Calif will definitely require flying over parts of Calif.)

[bearssoapbox]

17. .

[DeSwiss]

42. Nice.

[groundloop]

18. More accurate headline - Antiquated Air Traffic Computers Crash

Geez, talk about some bad editing.

[olddad56]

21. seems like the air traffic controllers have had to work with antiquated equipment forever.

Antiquated computers were a big factor in the air controllers strike in 82. Ronnie Ray-guns spun it to appear like the air controllers just wanted more money. It was really more about unsafe working conditions, and hardware failures were a big part of the problem.

[Major Nikon]

27. ERAM = En Route Automation Modernization

Looks like it was an undocumented feature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ERAM

[paleotn]

37. Yep. (nt)

[olddad56]

20. U-2 are still flying. Their replacement, the SR-71 has been retired..

I'm sure that satellites have taken over a lot of their workload, but the are still flying.

[Owl]

26. Why isn't the U2 retired instead of the SR-71?

[Major Nikon]

28. I reckon because the SR-71 operating costs were a lot higher

[hack89]

29. More versatile sensor suite

As well as more time on station. It is also much cheaper.

[aggiesal]

34. $1M per hour to operate. n/t

[aggiesal]

33. Globalhawk n/t

[Blue_Tires]

47. What are U-2s even good for anymore?

[hack89]

48. Their sensors are some of the most modern and sophisticated in the world

toss in high reliability and low cost of operation and it is easy to see why they are still flying.

[MindMover]

30. did anyone see the u2....lol

[SoapBox]

31. Thanks a lot for the diversion.

Was in route from MSP - LAX and got diverted to SLC...arrived LAX about 2 1/2 hours late.

[Evasporque]

50. NSA with new wireless tech no doubt....nt

[warrprayer]

52. at least now we know it works!

[Jesus Malverde]

53. FAA Says U-2 Spy Plane Definitely Scrambled Air Traffic Control Computers

The computer system interpreted the flight as a more typical low altitude operation, and began processing it for a route below 10,000 feet. The extensive number of routings that would have been required to de-conflict the aircraft with lower-altitude flights used a large amount of available memory and interrupted the computer’s other flight-processing functions.

http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/05/faa-says-spy-plane-definitely-scrambled-air-traffic-computer/361772/

[whistler162]

55. It wasn't the planes fault but the

computer program that was incorrectly reporting the planes altitude and trying to keep it out of other planes flight paths.

[kwassa]

56. I knew Gary Powers wasn't dead.