Vocal Voices

Overnight the National Air Traffic Control System (NATS) went down causing hundreds of delays and cancellations for thousands of passengers at the UK's major airports.

Now, we are constantly told that air traffic is vital for the UK economy and that even though our skies are already overcrowded we need more runways, in the South, to cope. If that is the case then why didn't a backup system kick in immediately? NATS was doubly lucky in this instance in that the fault happened during the quiet night time period and on a quieter weekend. What could have gone wrong does not bear thinking about if this had happened on a busy mid-morning during the week.

thats the first thing i thought of WM
no back up or regional centres
some idiots bright idea
everything seems to be centralized stupid

The trouble is that nowadays there seems to be very little common sense, and the people we pay to think things out
fail to do their job.

Take for example those stupid Chinese Lanterns. When they first came out it should have been obvious to anyone with
average intelligence that they could easily start a fire if they landed on any combustible surface such as a thatched roof.
Also they would be in violation of Anti-litter legislation. But was anything done? - not on your Nelly ! There have already
been several serious fires caused by these things but still nothing is done to outlaw them.

What can be done to make those in responsible positions do the job they are being paid to do ?

Aggers, if Suff were here he would be arguing that critical systems must have a backup - that is what is taught from the beginning, it is fundamental.

Why those who reach the top forget that is a bit of a mystery, but I suspect that the bean counters have a lot of influence regarding cost. Making things work effectively and safely is not part of their remit, keeping costs down is.

Workingman wrote:Aggers, if Suff were here he would be arguing that critical systems must have a backup - that is what is taught from the beginning, it is fundamental.

It's why most IT departments have a disaster recovery suite; why you keep discs or tapes with your data on and why you store them in fireproof containers. So that if disaster strikes you can switch without too much heartache to the disaster recovery centre and keep the business running.
(Mind you as a variation a certain public sector agency built their disaster centre too close to a river... The main centre was fine, but the disaster recovery suite ended up underwater when the river flooded and burst it's banks.. )