
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 25, 1995                   TAG: 9508250085
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COMPUTER CRASHES

A FRIEND tells of a charter flight from Norfolk to Roanoke when the weather turned particularly nasty and visibility was poor. But she wasn't afraid because she knew the plane, unlike some small craft she has taken on business trips, had radar.

After what seemed a hundred lifetimes, the plane landed safely. As she and other passengers deplaned, one noticed a gap in the control panel where a piece of equipment obviously had been removed.

What goes there? someone asked the pilot. The radar, he said; it broke and was taken out for repairs.

She doesn't think he was joking. Even if he was, the incident makes for an entertaining story - and a useful metaphor for the state of the nation's decrepit air-traffic control system.

Since April, there have been 21 radar failures alone in the network that tracks the air traffic that crisscrosses the country. As with the businesswoman confident that her plane's radar was guiding her flight safely through the storm, passengers are blithely ignorant that the system on which they rely may not be all they have come to expect it to be. Yet, just as the charter plane did land safely, the Federal Aviation Administration assures airlines and passengers alike that flying remains safe.

And, indeed, no crashes have occurred as a result of equipment failures.

Some close calls have been reported, though. And increasingly frequent computer crashes are delaying air traffic as controllers have to hold planes on the ground and divert approaching flights. When a primary system fails, controllers maintain safety by tracking fewer planes on backup systems that don't give them as much information - such as, when two planes are approaching each other.

No one can argue with the necessity. But such delays cost the airline industry an estimated $3.5 billion, not to mention the unknown costs to inconvenienced travelers.

Too complicated a replacement system, plus slowed hiring for technicians' jobs that were expected to be eliminated by new technology, have contributed to this potentially dangerous situation. In this new age, we count our computer programs before they are hatched at our own risk.

by CNB