LAX ATC Has Problem with Up and Down

North, South, East, West, Left, Right work for cars But for airplanes Up and Down matter too LAX Air Traffic System Can't Handle Up and Down High Altitude Spy Plane Crashes Air Control Computers So glad to know that billions of that post 9/11 Homeland Security money has been spent bringing our major airports into the 21st Century, giving them the ability to track any and all flying objects.

Because it's not like U2 spy planes haven't been flying in and out of Edwards AFB since long before I was even born.

Horry Clap.

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, Calif. 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 [ En Route Automation Modernization ], which generates display data for air-traffic controllers. Back-up computer systems also failed.
...
As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had to stop accepting flights into airspace managed by the L.A. Center, issuing a nationwide ground stop that lasted for about an hour and affected thousands of passengers.

At LAX, one of the nation's busiest airports, there were 27 cancellations of arriving flights, as well as 212 delays and 27 diversions to other airports. Twenty-three departing flights were cancelled, while 216 were delayed. There were also delays at the airports in Burbank, Long Beach, Ontario and Orange County and at other airports across the Southwestern U.S.

We could float among the stars together, you and I

For we can fly we can fly

Up, up and away

from my friends at: http://www.barking-moonbat.com/