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October 12, 2007

Memphis Air Traffic Controllers were using cell phones

Air traffic control failure is examined - Yahoo! News

Ron Carpenter and his fellow air traffic controllers were busy keeping more than 200 airplanes on course over seven states when their communication system crashed. Suddenly they couldn't talk to pilots or call for help.
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"Somebody just pulled out a cell phone," Carpenter said. "Then everybody else says, `Hey, that's not a bad idea.'"

So at a major Federal Aviation Administration center, controllers were reduced to using their personal cell phones to ask other centers to help keep planes on course and avert disaster.

They succeeded, but now members of Congress want to know if the Memphis failure last month was an isolated breakdown or evidence of a design flaw in a $2.4 billion project to upgrade telecommunications at air-control centers and other FAA installations across the country.

interesting

Posted by TY at October 12, 2007 8:57 AM

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