Cleared for Disaster : Air Traffic Control Technology: Outages, Failures, and Recovery

Jack talks with Harvey Scolnick about his years working with air traffic control technology and the failures that came with it. From construction work accidentally cutting a critical cable and knocking an air traffic control facility offline, with systems unavailable and aircraft still in the sky, to the people on the ground having to fall back on procedures, neighboring facilities, and some very human problem-solving.

In addition, we look at the redundancy behind air traffic control, what recovery looks like when safety-critical infrastructure fails, and why even carefully designed systems can still be brought down by something remarkably mundane.

Want even more info ? Read our show notes and related blog post related to this episode : https://blog.ithorrorstories.eu/episode-26-cleared-for-disaster/

Find out more about Harvey Scolnick : https://www.scolnickatc.com/

00:00 Introduction

00:55 Harvey's Journey

02:13 Becoming ATC

05:34 Airways and Radar

07:03 Separation Standards

11:21 Busy JFK

14:33 Iconic Aircrafts

21:12 Technology Upgrades