back to article Triple glitch grounds ALL aircraft in New Zealand

A trinity of network failures led to the grounding of all aircraft in New Zealand yesterday. Just four minutes of outage ended up keeping planes on the ground for two hours, affecting 200 flights on 23 June. It cut off radar systems and forced traffic controllers to revert to manual systems to land some of the fifty aircraft …

  1. Stu 18

    yeah real funny with those sheep

    A similar thing happened about 15 years ago.

    That time it was 'lets test the backup fail safe system' with the outcome that the backup system wasn't getting updates as expected so radar controllers were left with a dot instead of the full info.

    Presumably they decided that they'd give it another go.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: yeah real funny with those sheep

      yeah real funny with those sheep

      It's the double-ewe, double-ewe, double-ewe problem.

  2. Anonymous Blowhard

    Oh "l"

    Spe checker not working, or keyboard probem?

    1. Anonymous Blowhard

      Re: Oh "l"

      This post was much funnier before they corrected the headline from "Triple gitch grounds ALL aircraft in New Zealand"

      Sorry for any confusion.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Win

    Computers go Tits-up and Humans just calmly carry on without them, and without incident.

    That's the sort of machine-related story I like.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Win

      Just because on average pilots are humans highly trained to deal with emergencies also... a Facebook outage would have caused much more troubles!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Anyone know what a gitch is, is it a cross between a git and a witch ?

    The only thing I can find is that it is a slang term for underwear. Did technicians leave three pairs of dirty underwear in essential equipment thinking it was a washing machine ?

    1. chivo243 Silver badge

      I reported the typo, and thought gitch - was me, a grouchy old git....

    2. Fink-Nottle
      Boffin

      > Anyone know what a gitch is

      A gitch is a malfunction in a computer chup.

  5. Chris Miller
    Joke

    Picture editor fail

    Not many Herdwicks in NZ.

    1. Alister
      Coat

      Re: Picture editor fail

      You realise you are merely reinforcing the (false) impression of New Zealanders that other nations hold?

      1. OzBob

        Re: Picture editor fail

        As opposed to the impression drunk westies on the circular line on Waitangi Day provides?

        1. Scott 26
          Pint

          Re: Picture editor fail

          ahhhhh - there's nothing better than being part of 5000 drunken Kiwis shutting down Bayswater, Nottinghill Gate & High Street Kensington :)

          Happy days.

      2. Alistair
        Coat

        Re: Picture editor fail

        Must be utterly false, I see no hobbit houses in that picture.

        (sorry - the SO insists that we have to go see those things)

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Picture editor fail

        I saw the picture and wodnered what it had to do with Wales...

    2. Futumsh

      Re: Picture editor fail

      Pffft, those Herdwicks are in Coombe Bissett Down Nature Reserve in the Lake District, not New Zealand. If you want to choose a more geographically accurate picture you should probably opt for Romney or Merino to be on the safe side.

      Alternatively, if you have your mind set on rare breeds you could refer to this handy census of rare breed sheep in New Zealand http://www.rarebreeds.co.nz/sheepnumbers.html

      Bloody townies.

      1. Rob Daglish

        Re: Picture editor fail

        When correcting someone else in a dismissive fashion, try not to introduce new errors. I think you'll find Coombe Bissett Down Nature Reserve is practically the south coast of England, the Lake District is about as far north as you can go before men start wearing skirts with their pubes hanging out...

  6. -tim
    Black Helicopters

    Didn't the OOD books tell us about this?

    Oh wait, the OOD books were about how we could model an aircraft and assume a helicopter was close using inheritance and not about the real world at all.

    In the olden days, the flight controllers would write the data on a card and pass it from station to station based on where it was or their best guess if it lost communication. If all else failed, they could grab a pen and make a copy if the plane could be in more than one area.

    Modern air traffic control assumes controllers know where everything is all the time. Old air traffic control assumed that the controllers had a good idea but when when things went wrong, all the pilots would continue to a plan and there were ways out when those plans didn't work out even if there was no communication. Oddly enough, one has had far fewer issues than the other with no gains in traffic between the two systems.

    1. Robert Grant

      Re: Didn't the OOD books tell us about this?

      Some weird OOD chip on your shoulder has left you looking like a crazy person.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Didn't the OOD books tell us about this?

        I thought OOD carried their glowing balls in their hand rather than as chips on the shoulder.

  7. Gene Cash Silver badge

    "six levels of authentication"

    Really? Not 7 proxies??

  8. x 7

    were those Herwicks the closest you had to a photo of Pauline Lamb? I'm sure she's flattered

  9. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    What the...

    I find it unnerving that an air traffic control system anywhere is exposed to the internet. You would think that technicians would know better.

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