National Air Traffic Services may team with Germany and Spain to develop replacement
UK National Air Traffic Services (NATS) is looking at teaming with Germany and Spain to develop a new flight data processing system (FDPS) as it investigates the catastrophic failure of its own ageing system at the West Drayton London Terminal Control Centre on 3 June. But NATS admits replacement of the existing FDPS "will not occur before 2011".
NATS says it was "very disappointed" by the failure, adding: "This was the first FDPS problem we have experienced using the latest software, which has been working perfectly for months."
The problem occurred during testing of an overnight installation of a future software upgrade. The system was successfully returned to service, but at 06:03 "errors were detected in the distribution of flight data between centres", says NATS. The entire FDPS was then "cold started", or rebooted. It was declared fully operational by 07:03 and flight capacity restrictions were lifted at 08:05. But it was too late to resolve the flight situation quickly.
NATS controllers resorted to handwriting flight progress strips - normally produced automatically by the FDPS - to separate and sequence aircraft, limiting capacity to 50% of normal, and concentrated on incoming flights.
NATS says it is "looking at all aspects of how the system was prepared for off-line testing, at the exact nature of the software being tested and at the way in which it was returned to service".
The failure raises concerns about the increasing complexity of the FDPS, which has received many software upgrades in its 30-year life, and about how essential testing can be carried out without affecting the system. "The software had already been tested in a development unit," says NATS. "This was a regular upgrade."
West Drayton is the base for NATS' London Terminal Control Centre and oversees aircraft flying below 24,000ft in the London area. It works closely with the Swanwick London Area Control Centre, which is responsible for most of the airspace over England and Wales.
The IBM mainframe-based FDPS has crashed several times in recent years, including twice in 2002. NATS had originally planned to replace the system by 2007, but this has slipped to 2011 at the earliest.
"We believe the planned Spanish system could form the basis of a much more advanced FDPS," says NATS. Later this year it will decide on possible full partnership with Spain and Germany on a new FDPS that would be installed at Prestwick in 2009 and at Swanwick in 2011.
JULIAN MOXON / LONDON
Source: Flight International
