29 ms·
Mostly yes; however, there are large parts of the Atlantic and Pacific where that isn't true (radar contact). I know the Atlantic routes are frequently full of
by RyJones 3y ago
Mostly yes; however, there are large parts of the Atlantic and Pacific where that isn't true (radar contact). I know the Atlantic routes are frequently full of plans that left the US and Canada heading to the UK.
I have no idea what percent of the volume into the UK comes from outside radar control; if they asked a flight to divert, that may open multiple other cans of worms.
- mannykannot 3y ago> If they asked a flight to divert, that may open multiple other cans of worms. Any ATC system has to be resilient enough to handle a diversion on account of things like bad weather, mechanical failure or a medical emergency. In fact, I would think the diversion of one aircraft would be less of a problem than those caused by bad weather, and certainly less than the problem caused by this failure. Furthermore, I would guess that the mitigation would be just to manually direct the flight according to the accepted flight plan, as it was a completely valid one. One of the many problems here is that they could not identify the problem-triggering flight plan for hours, and only with the assistance of the vendor's engineers. Another is that the system had immediately foreclosed on that option anyway, by shutting down.