A computer error that affected the aeropuesto Orly Paris on Saturday was caused by a “prehistoric OS ” according to the French weekly Le Canard chained indicated that a team called DECOR, which is used by air traffic controllers to give pilots weather information, have suffered serious damage.
This team runs Windows 3.1 A operating system that was released in 1992. One of the highlights of this platform was the inclusion of Minesweeper, A video game one player.
This error prevented air traffic controllers to provide pilots the Runway Visual Range (RVR), a value that determines the appropriate distance at which a driver can see the runway . When the fog descended on the track that day, engineers struggled to find the source of the fault, and therefore the flights were suspended as a precautionary measure.
“The tools used by drivers Aéroports de Paris is running on four different operating systems, which are between 10 and 20 years old, “said Alexandre Fiacre, the secretary general of the Union of Air Traffic France.
ADP is the company that manages the Airport Orly and other airports in Paris.
“The problem with a system many years is that the People do not like to do maintenance work, “he said Fiacre . “In addition, we are beginning to lose the experience (to treat) with the type of operating system. In Paris, we have only three specialists who can deal with issues related to DECOR “said Fiacre .
” One retires next year, not We have found anyone to replace, “he said.
Fiacre compared the challenges of running the DECOR supported by 3.1 Windows with the problems facing NASA program Voyager , which was launched in 1977. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 the two robotic probes that are used by NASA to study the outer solar system, are based on 250 central processing units of kHz made by General Electric.
In these 40 years, computers are less powerful than pocket calculators today, and using programming languages like FORTRAN, which means that with the impending retirement of the last of the original mission engineer Voyager , NASA will be forced to hire a programmer to handle systems of the decade of 1970r .
According to Le Canard enchaîné , France’s transport minister has promised that” the computer is updated to the year 2017 but Fiacre believes that this will happen in 2019 “even in 2021″.
A similar case occurred in December 2014 when the airspace of London was closed for 36 minutes about fifty flights were canceled after a faulty software 50 years of age.
Moreover, u n aeronautical engineer interviewed by Le Canard enchaîné raised the possibility similar disruptions during Change Conference of the United Nations COP 21 to be held in Paris from November 30 to December 11 “Imagine, during the COP 21, the comings and goings of heads of state who were discontinued due Software prehistory “I adivirtío the weekly . week
. Source: News Vice
No comments:
Post a Comment