The Risk Factor

There were news reports that an air traffic control computer failure in Atlanta on Friday caused cancellations and flight delays along the US East Coast. The Atlanta FAA computer processes pilots' flights plans and sends them to air-traffic controllers – when it failed, the Salt Lake City center took over, but it became overloaded and temporarily failed as well.

The Atlanta system failure lasted only from 0657 to just before 1100, but the effects, coupled with the effects of the thunder storms that moved from the Midwest to the East Coast, compounded the trouble. Residual effects were still being felt into this morning.

This is the third major computer problem in the past several months. On Friday, 25 May, at the start of the Memorial Day holiday weekend, the mapping software in the San Diego Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility used by controllers to guide flights for 21 airports in the Southern California region, failed for about an hour when staff attempted to update the maps.

Then on early Monday morning 5 March, there was a software failure in the ATOP (Advanced Technologies and Ocean Procedures) system that air traffic controllers in New York use to guide aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean. About two dozen flights were affected.

Until the FAA’s latest air traffic control (ATC) modernization effort called NextGen is complete – and that is not scheduled until 2025 according to current projects (and hopes) – and the current fragility of the current ATC computer and radar systems, one can expect more and more of these failures to occur. A complete system meltdown is probable in the next few years if there is a major computer or radar failure on a major travel weekend that happens during a spate of bad weather spanning several regions of the US. Just hope you aren’t flying when that happens.

The controversy over the drug-resistant TB patient Mr. Andrew Speaker who flew back to the US from Europe over his doctors’ objections, and his ability to enter the US even though he was on a travelers’ watch list, illustrates the very old IS&T designer admonition to users that, “It may be the system design you specified, but it isn’t what you wanted or needed.”

As you may recall, Mr. Speaker flew to Montreal from Prague and then drove into the US at the Champlain, New York border as a deliberate means to by-pass the likelihood that would be kept from flying directly back to the US from Europe because he would be on the US “no fly list.” Although the US Customs and Border Protection inspector saw that there was an alert on Mr. Speaker stating that if he should try to re-enter the US, Speaker should be detained and isolated, and public health officials immediately contacted. Instead, the inspector ignored the warning and waved Speaker through because, according to reports, “he didn’t look sick.”

As additionally described in a Washington Post story, US Custom and Border Protection “ … officials testified that they caught the inspector's error only by a mix of caution and luck, because starting May 22 they had ordered a special, twice-a-day check of a database of airline reservations to see if Speaker had changed his expected June 5 return to the United States.

As it turns out, the database is linked to records that also show when a passport flagged by authorities has been swiped at a border crossing, as Speaker's did when he reentered at 6:18 p.m. on May 24.”

The Post story goes on to quote US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner W. Ralph Basham, as saying, “I'm not going to sit here and say the system worked. It may have worked the way it was designed, but it was not good enough.” No kidding.

To reduce the possibility of something like this happening again, US Custom and Border Protection officials are now saying they are putting new procedures in place. Of course, this won’t keep highly infectious and multi drug-resistant TB out of the US, which Nils Daulaire, president of the Global Health Council argues, requires a more active risk management approach to attack TB at its source.

To me, the risk of a single point of failure like a Border official ignoring a warning is symptomatic of what happens in many information system designs. Few IT systems are ever examined in depth after they are deployed for their operational limitations until after an incident like the one occurs. And in my experience, most limits turn out to be, as described by Harvard Business School professor Max H. Bazerman and INSEAD professor Michael D. Watkins, “predictable surprises.”

I'll be interested in seeing whether this event will trigger a wider review of the limitations of the Custom and Border system as well as its systemic role in being able to manage the risks of travelers having infectious diseases, but my expectations are not high for this happening any time soon.

The FAA announced today that the team lead by ITT Corporation has been selected as "the prime contractor for Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), the keystone technology to the Next Generation Air Transportation System. The new system promises to significantly reduce delays and enhance safety by using precise signals from the Global Navigation Satellite System instead of those from traditional radar to pinpoint aircraft locations."

"The contract is worth approximately $1.8 billion from 2007 to 2025. ITT Corporation will build the ADS-B ground stations and own and operate the equipment. The FAA will pay subscription charges for ADS-B broadcasts transmitted to properly equipped aircraft and air traffic control facilities."

Hopefully, ITT will be able to implement the ADS-B on time, on budget and to specification, and doesn't end up like the last major air traffic control upgrade effort called the Advanced Automation System (AAS) project.

I received an interesting comment from a friend of mine, Dr. Martyn Thomas, on my last post concerning the new FAA air traffic control contract. Martyn wrote,

It's relatively easy to jam satellite signals, because they are so weak. It's very hard to jam radar. Has anyone published a vulnerability study for the proposals for ADS-B?

Interesting question. Anyone (especially from ITT or the FAA) have an answer?

Just in case you missed it, by the end of May 2008 paper tickets will virtually be no more. According to the Associated Press, on June 1, the International Air Transport Association that handles ticketing for most major airlines will stop issuing paper tickets. Some small regional or foreign airlines will continue to issue paper tickets, but they will be a small minority of regional carriers.

I can hardly wait for the day when several major airline reservation and ticketing systems like what happened to All Nippon Airways in July have software problems simultaneously, which will no doubt happen on a day where there is bad weather everywhere.

The Washington Post has a deeply disturbing article on the six wayward nuclear cruise missiles of a few weeks ago. A cascading chain of not followed safety procedures led to the nuclear missiles to be loaded onto a B-52 bomber and flown unnoticed across the country in direct violation of 40 years of national policy.

As I mentioned in my previous post on the subject, it appears that risk management had become routine and therefore incredibly sloppy, even though weapons of mass destruction were involved. If some rightly worried military personnel had not leaked the episode to the Military Times, the whole thing may have never seen the light of day. The US Air Force even thought that the event was not going to cause much of public furor, hence "No press interest anticipated." I think the Air Force Public Affairs Office needs a bit of a reality check if they thought that loose nukes were a non-public interest item.

From a risk management standpoint, what irritates me most is that this was a classic "predictable surprise." The article describes how that the Air Force was warned in 1998 of "diminished attention for even 'the minimum standards' of nuclear weapons' maintenance, support and security;" the Air Force Inspector General found in 2003 found that half of the "nuclear surety" inspections conducted that year resulted in failing grades, the worst performance in probably 50 or more years; and; in 2006, the Air Force eliminated a separate nuclear-operations directorate known informally as the N Staff, which closely tracked the maintenance and security of nuclear weapons in the United States and other NATO countries.

The Air Force claims that the N Staff functions were still being done by other Air Force units, but I doubt that these other units viewed their newly acquired mission as a high priority, given the daily stress of dealing with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Associated Press reported that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has asked for an outside review of the incident by the Defense Science Board be conducted on top of the one being conducted internally by the Air Force. While the outside review is said not to be a reflection on whether the Air Force will conduct an honest review, it is hard to read it as other than a "trust, but verify" decision.

PS - Happy 60th Anniversary to the US Air Force.

This coming Thursday, the 4th of October, will be the 50th anniversary of the launching of Prosteishiy Sputnik (or the Simplest Satellite) and the beginnings of the Space Age and Space Race. Only now is the fascinating back story detailing the events leading up to the launch coming out in the open.

For instance, the public was told that the object they were seeing as it twinkled across the night sky was Sputnik itself. However, the satellite weighing in at 184 pounds was too small to be seen with the naked eye. What people actually were looking at was the second stage of the booster rocket used to lift Sputnik into orbit. Interestingly, the Soviet leadership at the time did not at first realize the magnitude of their achievement until the Western governments and press made a big deal out of it.

Yesterday, Fairchild Semiconductor celebrated its 50th anniversary as well. Founded by Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce, C. Sheldon Roberts, Victor Grinich, Eugene Kleiner, Jean Hoerni and Julius Blank, and Jay Last with $3,500 of their own money, the company helped make Silicon Valley. Fairchild perfected the capability to mass produce transistors from a single wafer, whereas up to this point only one transistor could be produced per wafer. The company also created the monolithic integrated circuit and the planar transistor, which is still the the primary method for producing transistors today.

Moore and Noyce left 11 years later to start another company in the Valley, something called Intel.

Boeing finally admitted yesterday that it was delaying the introduction of the 787 Dreamliner from May 2008 to the end of 2008. Just a few days ago, Boeing was insisting that it would make the May delivery, even if it had to work 24 hours a day to do so.

Along with some production problems having to do with parts availability (e.g.,"from fasteners .. to clips and brackets and small assemblies being provided further down in the supply chain") as well as - drum roll please - software.

The issues with software are "coding and integration." More time is required to let the software "mature" through additional testing.

Quoting from Scott Carson,Boeing Co., EVP, CEO Boeing Commercial Airplanes:

"But let me say this about the overall system integration work. We have had two or three software areas that have been on the critical path right along with the production build of the airplane. .... the software and structures work, were running neck and neck."

"As it became clear that in fact the most critical pacing item was the structures, this has actually given us a little bit of headroom on the software side. We're going to have much more time with the software in the lab, both in terms of maturing the individual software itself but also in integrating the software packages to assure service-ready functionality by the time the airplane flies. So the silver mining in this cloud tied to the structures work is we think it has given us some breathing room that is going to allow the software piece to be much more mature by the time the airplane flies."

Ah, the old game of software versus systems chicken to see who has to blink first, and admit they are more behind than the other guy.

Congratulations!! The software guys win.

How hard do you think the software folks were praying that those fasteners wouldn't be available before their tests were? So even though the software is late (and over-budget?), it doesn't look as bad as if software development were alone the hold-up to the Dreamliner's in-service date.

BTW, a note to the FAA - you may want to do some extra "maturity" checks on that software.

In August, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) proposed that passengers be requested to provide their full names, birth dates and genders when making airplane reservations. Many airlines are against the proposal, however, USA Today reported today. Airlines are unhappy at the prospect, not only because they view the proposal as invasive, confusing, and useless and would likely only serve to irritate passengers, but it will pose unacceptable costs to the airlines as they will once again have to reprogram their reservation systems to collect the information.

TSA is proposing that airlines and travel agents would be required to ask people reserving flights for their birth date, gender and full name. However, you would not be required to give the information. But if you don't, then you might be "more easily mistaken for a terrorist" - wink, wink - and "may be more likely to experience delays, be subjected to additional screening (or) be denied transport," nudge, nudge - or should I say, shove, shove.

Maybe the TSA and UK government ought to get together and just demand one set of data, including your resume, whom you dated in high school, who you first kissed, and the first person you had a crush on in grammar school.

When the new $8 billion Terminal 5 opens in March of next year at London's Heathrow airport, you won't have to worry about remembering where you park your car. According to a story in USA Today, infrared cameras and sensors will be capturing a car's license plate as it enters the terminal's parking garage, and as the car makes its way inside the garage, additional cameras will be monitoring it. Cameras will also take a picture of where each car eventually ends up parking.

When passengers return from a flight, they can go to a kiosk and either enter their parking ticket or license plate number. The location of their car will then be displayed on a diagram of the parking terminal.

The parking garage will also have information telling passengers where there is open parking. You can read a story about smart parking technology in a story I wrote for IEEE Spectrum on-line here.

In a related parking story, also from USA Today, it seems that because parking is at such a premium in many areas of Britain, that fast-food restaurants like McDonald's are warning customers to eat up in 45 minutes or risk a parking fine of $150, while supermarkets and department stores, including British retail giant Tesco, are warning shoppers they too will be fined if they park for more than two or three hours. Just like at Heathrow, cameras are being used to identify the cars overstaying the parking time limits.

In a story that appeared last week in Flight International and then got legs via Wired, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is going to require Boeing "to demonstrate that certain 787 flight critical domains - digital systems and networks that for the first time will be accessible externally via wireless and other links to airline operations and maintenance systems - cannot be tampered with."

The FAA Special Conditions Notice [Docket No. NM364 Special Conditions No. 25-356-SC] effective 1 February 2008 summary states:

"These special conditions are issued for the Boeing Model 787-8 airplane. This airplane will have novel or unusual design features when compared to the state of technology envisioned in the airworthiness standards for transport category airplanes. These novel or unusual design features are associated with connectivity of the passenger domain computer systems to the airplane critical systems and data networks. For these design features, the applicable airworthiness regulations do not contain adequate or appropriate safety standards for protection and security of airplane systems and data networks against unauthorized access. These special conditions contain the additional safety standards that the Administrator considers necessary to establish a level of safety equivalent to that established by the existing standards."

The Rocky Mountain News had an article today on Denver International Airport's (DIA) final agreement with two companies to demolish and cart away the remnants of its infamous automated baggage system. The cost for its removal is not known exactly, but it will be in the millions.

A fitting comment on was made by Denver City Council President Michael Hancock, "This thing never dies."

An interesting point in the story is that there may be a final, accurate accounting of the costs for the automated baggage system, something that has never been fully determined.

The article also said that a new baggage system will be in place soon.

Just a month after delaying the first-flight of the 787 Dreamliner and promising that things were on track, Boeing once again delayed first flight by at least three months. First customer delivery subsequently slipped from the end of this year into early next.

Boeing admitted that it had underestimated the amount of time needed to complete the work done by suppliers of key 787 components. During the analyst conference call yesterday, Boeing management was asked, "Supply chain aside, you have a slip here in first flight of three months, and how much of that and the delay in power on is related to problems in getting systems to play to one another? We still hear rumors of problems with the flight control computer, the common core, etc." Boeing management gave a long-winded, roundabout answer to the question without really answering it, so one suspects that there may be more computer issues than it is letting on to or the FAA is asking about.

One analyst says that "Boeing's credibility is shot." Some customers like Qantas, Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines are thinking of pressing for compensation as well. Boeing's credibility may not be shot, but it is pretty thin.

If Boeing has to slip again, things could start to get very, very interesting.

While Boeing may be having troubles with the Dreamliner, according to a story in the UK Computing it is to receive a £90m contract to rectify software and avionics problems for eight brand-new Chinook helicopters that have been sitting in hangers at RAF Odiham for the past nine years.

This has been one strange defense program from the beginning, which goes back some 13 years. Below are excerpts from the 2005 UK Select Committee on Public Accounts report that gives some background to the story:

"In July 1995, the Department [UK Ministry of Defence] decided to upgrade eight of the 14 Chinook Mk2 helicopters it was procuring as part of its requirement for a Medium Support Helicopter. The upgrade to an enhanced Mk3 standard would include improvements in range, night vision, and navigation capabilities. The project was scheduled to cost more than £250 million and the forecast in­service date was November 1998. A subsequent change to the requirement led to an avionics upgrade programme being put to contract in 1997, which entailed a hybrid solution, incorporating elements of the existing analogue cockpit and new digital systems and displays. The need to test the airworthiness of the aircraft together with some programme slippage led to the setting of a new In-Service Date of January 2002. When the aircraft were accepted from the contractor in December 2001, the Department found that it was unable to demonstrate that the flight instruments met United Kingdom Defence Standards, as this requirement had not been specified in the contract. Consequently, the aircraft could not be used other than for limited flight trials."

Greetings, folks. I am Peter Ladkin and hope to be contributing on safety matters, especially in transportation.

Bob wrote recently about the FAA's new certification requirement on the Boeing B787 "Dreamliner" networks. I checked it out.

The FAA makes regulatory requirements (which are administrative law) by publishing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) in the Federal Register (FR) , collecting comments, and implementing the rule in the light of comments. The NPR was published in FR 72(71) on April 13, 2007, eight months ago. The FAA received comments from Airbus and from the Air Line Pilots Association, and issued the rule, unchanged, with answers to the comments, in FR 73(1) on January 2, 2008, whence the brouhaha in Wired.

So far, this all looks routine. Let's look at what the rule does.

The cause of last week's crash at London Heathrow's airport of a British Airways Boeing 777 is still unclear. Crash investigators promise a preliminary report within a month.

Speculation about the cause currently run from a problem with the airplane's electrics, avionics system and/or engine control automation (reported in the Sunday Times and yesterday's London Guardian) to something wrong with either the aircraft's fuel system or the fuel itself that led to fuel starvation (Sunday Express). Just about every British paper has a theory, it seems.

What is known that about 2 miles from the airport and 600 feet up, the "the autothrottle demanded more thrust. It was a normal procedure, a small adjustment intended to keep the plane at the correct speed and height. Nothing happened. The computer system again ordered more thrust. Again, no response." The pilots apparently then tried to increase the throttle manually, and again, no response. Skilled airmanship brought the 777 into what one could called a semi-controlled crash, which fortunately, didn't result in any loss of life.

The plane's wreckage is being moved to British Airway's Hatton Cross engineering facility about 500 meters from the crash site for further investigation. If a rare software anomaly is found to be the problem - as it was in the Malaysian 777-200 incident of 2005 (see the Australian Transport Safety Bureau incident report, and a brief description of it in today's Sunday Times) - then expect there to be some additional fall out towards the Boeing 787 development.

UPDATE: Peter Ladkin point out that a preliminary crash report is required within 30 days (I wrote promised, which implies something else). As Peter noted, the UK is an International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) signatory, and ICAO signatories are required to produce accident reports according to a general standard format; they are also required to issue a preliminary report within 30 days of the accident.

UPDATE 1: Today's London Times is claiming that, "British Airways technical staff believe that the Boeing aircraft’s computerised control system caused both engines to fail during its final descent towards Heathrow on Thursday." We shall see.

Attention in last week's crash of the Boeing 777 in London now seem to be moving away from computer error to something wrong with the fuel, according to several reports.

The UK's Air Accident Investigation Branch released an update which said: "As previously reported, whilst the aircraft was stabilised on an ILS approach with the autopilot engaged, the autothrust system commanded an increase in thrust from both engines. The engines both initially responded but after about 3 seconds the thrust of the right engine reduced. Some eight seconds later the thrust reduced on the left engine to a similar level. The engines did not shut down and both engines continued to produce thrust at an engine speed above flight idle, but less than the commanded thrust."

"Recorded data indicates that an adequate fuel quantity was on board the aircraft and that the autothrottle and engine control commands were performing as expected prior to, and after, the reduction in thrust."

The AAIB goes on to say that, "All possible scenarios that could explain the thrust reduction and continued lack of response of the engines," will be investigated.

The computer as culprit theory, however, still is popular, as shown in this cockpit video.

A computer problem at 1800 local time Wednesday night at the Nashua flight center, officially known as Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center (or Boston Center) had to shut down and reboot a computer system used to track flight routes, aircraft type, and other key information about planes flying in and out of the region, according to the Boston Globe. The system was down for about 45 minutes, although the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) said it was longer.

During the outage, controllers went back to entering flight information manually, and needed to call other air traffic centers to obtain aircraft information for flights entering New England airspace. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said there were no safety issues, but NATCA disagreed.

" 'This was, in every possible sense, a dangerously unsafe and chaotic situation,' said Kevin Bianchi, Boston Center’s NATCA facility representative. 'Controllers were in essence working blind and, in many cases, actually had to question pilots to determine their location and routes of flight. Controllers were required to use a secondary backup system to safely track aircraft.' "

The problem caused delays to flights at Logan International Airport and other New England airports as well as several international routes that travel in New England airspace on the way in and out of New York.

Why the problem occurred is not known. The FAA said that it is now investigating.

" 'We have taken advantage of the delays to make sure our system level maturity is coming along at a rate that will avoid problems as we enter flight test.' " So said Boeing's Scott Carson, chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes last Wednesday in regard to the year-long slip in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner's flight testing. As I noted a few months back, the software folks were praying for some other part of the aircraft's development to be blamed for the slip, and not them. They got their wish - and they better make the most of it.

Carson says that the 787 is now on track - although we've heard that a couple of times before. There still has been no public disclosure of the penalties Boeing will have to pay airlines such as All Nippon Airways for the late delivery of the 787, but I doubt it will be minimal.

On a side note, I had a chance to see Boeing's major competitor the Airbus 380 arriving in Singapore last week. Others may disagree, but it looked to me like a cargo plane on steroids. It definitely looks better in pictures than up close.

Unfortunately - or maybe fortunately - I was outbound to Germany and did not get to see how baggage, customs and immigration handled the plane's passenger volume. The newly opened and spectacular terminal at Changi Airport (which I'll blog about soon) has been designed to handle Singapore Airline's future fleet of A380's (Singapore Airlines currently has two A380s in service, a further 17 on firm order and options on six more), but even though the new terminal is spacious, I don't think I would want to be around when a couple of A380s off-load at the same time.

It is not known how much Airbus had to pay in penalty costs to Singapore Airline for delivering the A380 two years late (operations started last October), but given that Singapore Air had very publicly committed its future business around it, the amount had to be pretty high.

In today's Wall Street Journal, there is a story about American and United Airlines taking precautions against the possibility ice accumulation in the fuel systems of Boeing 777s, which seems to be the leading theory for the crash of the British Airways 777 on 17 January. According to the paper, "The moves come amid growing indications that a buildup of ice crystals or slush simultaneously restricted fuel flow and reduced the thrust of both engines of the Boeing 777."

The paper goes on, "U.S. and British investigators are focusing on whether ice crystals may have clogged the plane's dual oil-cooler systems, according to people familiar with the details. The radiator-like devices use fuel flow from each of the wing tanks to cool engine oil, and fuel then flows from there to the nearby engine during flight. .... [it is] believed to be the first time ice contamination in fuel brought down a large, state-of-the-art jetliner with no apparent mechanical or computer malfunctions."

So much for it being software.

There was a story in last Sunday's Seattle Times about the fact that nearly 25% of the 637,000 aerospace workers in the US can retire next year, possibly posing a severe skills shortage in the commercial and defense aviation. In addition, the article notes that the demand for "aerospace, electrical, mechanical and computer engineering disciplines is expected to be double what it was 10 years ago."

The story goes on to say that many younger workers view aerospace plants as "old fashion industries."

As I noted a few weeks ago, there is a controversy raging about whether universities and colleges are teaching future IT workers inappropriate skills, and that it is becoming increasingly hard to attract students into science and technology. Given this and the looming retirement situation, is the US poised to lose its aerospace dominance?

Also, with US is pouring more money into advance defense systems than any time since World War II, can these systems even be built, given the high-tech resource scarcity that will hit in the next decade?

Who is likely to dominate the aerospace field in the future? Is it automatically the Pac Rim, given Europe looks in even worse shape than the US, given its demographics and inability to attract high tech students into their universities as well?

And how much does it matter to the US, if at all? And if does matter, what can realistically be done about it?

I would like to hear your thoughts on the subject.

In a Chicago Tribune story this morning, Boeing's Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing for commercial airplanes, was quoted as saying that while Boeing was confident of its new delivery schedule, it wouldn't rule out further delays.

Tinseth further said, "We have not finished the production plan yet. We are waiting until the end of the first quarter to finish the production plan and then we can make better projections on deliveries for 2009 and beyond. It is a reasonable plan but you never know."

Is this just being realistic, or is this a warning flare to Wall Street analysts that not to jump down Boeing's throat if another slip is announced? Just a month ago, Boeing was saying after the latest slip, everything "no worries" we got it covered.

To now publicly sow some doubt - well, my take is to expect another slip announcement. And I bet the software guys continue to be happy.

Investigators are still stumped why the Boeing 777 crashed at Heathrow airport last month. The prevalent theory about ice in the fuel seems not to be able to stand scrutiny. Excessive water or other contaminants in the fuel was not found.

Investigators still being the problem is in the fuel system. The latest speculation now seems to be that the plan encountered "unusually low" temperatures that dipped to minus 76 Celsius (minus 105 Fahrenheit) between the Ural Mountains and Scandinavia. This may have affected the operation of the high-pressure fuel fuel pumps.

A computer malfunction in the baggage system at London Heathrow's Terminal 4 has caused chaos for over 4,000 passengers flying British Airways (BA) and several others over the past several days. It appears that about noon Tuesday, a software upgrade to Terminal 4's computerized baggage handling system caused the the belts that route and or transfer luggage from check-in desks to specific aircraft luggage loading and off-loading areas to stop working.

As a result, BA told all of its economy class passengers who were leaving Terminal 4 (which handles long-haul flights to other countries) or transferring to other flights at the terminal that they could not check in anything but a small carry on bag. Business class and first class passengers were not affected (a travel class-specific software bug - how interesting). It must have been very thrilling for those passengers who were already on long-haul flights and landed at Heathrow only to be told they could go, but their luggage had to stay.

BA economy passengers were told they could try to ship their luggage to their destinations by other means, wait for some future BA flight when the system was working, try to get on another airline (BA said it would try to get other airlines to honor their tickets) or get a refund. Of course, I guess you could always upgrade if there was room.

The other airlines like Qantas, KLM and Air Malta that also use Terminal 4 quickly decided to manually moved passenger luggage, and therefore were only temporarily affected. BA claimed that the sheer quantity of their luggage meant this was not possible except for the aforementioned business and first class passengers.

As of today, the baggage system seems to be working again, except for transfer passengers. Heathrow has always been an awful place to transfer flights - this latest problem just adds to its notoriety, and a desire of experienced passengers to avoid Heathrow (and BA) at all costs.

According to reports, this is the 10th baggage system breakdown at Heathrow since last May.

In what could have been better timing for BA, while this situation was unfolding, it was announced that BA was the second worst airline in Europe for losing bags: 26.5 bags for every 1,000 passengers. Only TAP, the Portuguese carrier, lost more, some 27.8 bags per 1,000 passengers.

BA next announced a £12 fuel surcharge increase. As the Telegraph once more reported, that from "Monday, the surcharge for long-haul flights of less than nine hours will rise from £96 for a return flight to £106. For return long-haul flights of more than nine hours, the charge will increase from £116 to £128."

BA, with more exquisite timing, unveiled its new Terminal 5 to the press, which is supposedly going to solve the passenger baggage system problem once and for all. As the Telegraph reported, "Gary Ranns, lounges manager at British Airways, said: 'Terminal 5 will be a fantastic experience. It will make travelling a pleasure again and not a chore.' " Given what was happening over at Terminal 4 at the time, Ranns might have chosen better language.

And finally, to add to the positive publicity, BA pilots also have decided today that they would go on strike over the coming Easter holidays, and just before when Terminal 5 is supposed to open on 27 March.

Of course, BA apologizes for any inconvenience.

UPDATE: Friday, 22 February, BA announced everything was back to "normal" at Terminal 4 - which means routine chaos rather than computer enhanced chaos.

The US Department of Transportation's Inspector General released its audit of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) oversight of aircraft manufacturers’ quality assurance systems for both domestic and foreign suppliers. The audit found that the FAA's risk-based oversight system "does not ensure that manufacturers regularly audit their suppliers," nor does the FAA "perform enough audits of manufacturers’ suppliers (i.e., supplier control audits) to test how well manufacturers’ quality assurance systems are working."

As a result, substandard processes are being used by some parts suppliers (e.g., at one supplier, "an employee used a piece of paper, scotch-taped to the work surface, as a measuring device for a length of wire on an oil and fuel pressure transmitter") thereby allowing for "substandard parts to enter the aviation supply chain."

The FAA, however, claims that, "There are absolutely no imminent safety issues raised by the report."

If this is true, then I guess the DOT Inspector General is overly worried, correct?

The report made me curious about software-related supply chain issues, but the audit wasn't very forthcoming in this regard. It said that, "In conducting these audits, FAA inspectors review the suppliers’ organizational management structure, procedures for product design control, software quality assurance, manufacturing processes, manufacturing controls (including calibration), and supplier control (how well the suppliers oversee the vendors that supply parts to them)."

No other mention of software is in the report, like, how good these software quality assurance processes are.

For those of you in the business who know - a question. How much, if any, is legacy commercial aircraft system software outsourced to and maintained by third-party suppliers? And if it is, are the risks the same, less or more than what is being found with aircraft parts maintenance that is outsourced?

The Australian Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon decided it was time to invoke the IT mercy rule and announced that he was terminating the ill-fated Super Seasprite avionics upgrade program after 11 years of futility.

The total amount the canceled program will cost Australian taxpayers is estimated to be about AU$1.3 billion, not counting the costs of procuring a new helicopter or the costs/risks associated with Australia's eight ANZAC class frigates not having helicopters providing anti-surface and surveillance capabilities for probably another 5 years.

Nine of the Seasprites have been delivered to the Australian Navy's 805 Squadron based at Nowra, New South Wales, but have been grounded for safety reasons.

Maybe they can be made into nice flower planters in front of the main gate.

Last week, a Goldman Sachs analyst warned in a research report is likely to slip another three to even six months due to continued difficulties with getting parts. Boeing refuses to comment directly to the report, other than saying, “Boeing is in the process of conducting an assessment of its 787 delivery schedule and will communicate it to customers around the end of first quarter, as previously indicated in January.”

From previous Boeing comments, a slip looks more and more likely.

In addition, All Nippon Airways (ANA) is demanding clarification of Boeing's 787 delivery schedule. According to the story in today's Sydney Morning Herald, the airline is very unhappy: " 'The longer we wait, the more servicing of the 767s we will need to do,' said Mr Shinobe, an executive vice-president at All Nippon. 'Some of them may become unfit for flying.' "

The story says that in February Japan Air said that it was considering buying Airbus A350 XWB planes to help increase its fleet's fuel efficiency last month after Boeing announced the delay in the 787-3 version of the Dreamliner.

If Boeing isn't careful, the Dreamliner may start getting a new name, like Dreamloser.

The newspaper The Australian reported today that the Australian government and Kaman, the US contractor for the ill-fated Seasprite helicopter program, have come to terms. The 11 not so Super Seasprites, spare parts and training equipment, are to be sold off and the government is to get at least AU$40 million guaranteed back from the sale.

Now, who is going to want to buy the Seasprites given they are unsafe to fly, well that is another story.