ad info




CNN.com
 MAIN PAGE
 WORLD
 U.S.
 LOCAL
 POLITICS
 WEATHER
 BUSINESS
 SPORTS
 TECHNOLOGY
 SPACE
 HEALTH
 ENTERTAINMENT
 BOOKS
 TRAVEL
 FOOD
 ARTS & STYLE
 NATURE
 IN-DEPTH
 ANALYSIS
 myCNN

 Headline News brief
 news quiz
 daily almanac

  MULTIMEDIA:
 video
 video archive
 audio
 multimedia showcase
 more services

  E-MAIL:
Subscribe to one of our news e-mail lists.
Enter your address:
Or:
Get a free e-mail account

 DISCUSSION:
 message boards
 chat
 feedback

  CNN WEB SITES:
CNN Websites
 AsiaNow
 En Español
 Em Português
 Svenska
 Norge
 Danmark
 Italian

 FASTER ACCESS:
 europe
 japan

 TIME INC. SITES:
 CNN NETWORKS:
Networks image
 more networks
 transcripts

 SITE INFO:
 help
 contents
 search
 ad info
 jobs

 WEB SERVICES:

  Transcripts

Morning News

Computer Problem Causes Major Delays in East Coast's Airports

Aired January 6, 2000 - 10:22 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: We want to continue now with a story we talked about five minutes ago: flight delays in certain parts of the country, namely Reagan National and Dulles in the D.C. area and also Laguardia and Newark in the New York City area.

Carl Rochelle tracking this for us. Apparently computer problems.

Carl, what's happening?

CARL ROCHELLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is a computer problem, that's what I am told, Bill, by officials at the FAA. They do say it is not a Y2K problem. The problem is with a peripheral device of some sort, and they weren't able to identify that right at the moment, but the transferring information from that into the main air traffic control computer.

And when you talk about the airports that are affected, Washington National is affected; it is one of the ones that are affected. It is what most of the people on the Northeast Coast call the Bo-Wash corridor, the area that runs from Boston all the way down through Washington, and these delays, I'm told, run all the way even down to Raleigh, North Carolina. Affected primarily: Boston, New York airports, Washington area, Philadelphia and Raleigh.

Now, what is happening is they're having a problem with transferring of information from one of the devices into the main computer. Here's a picture of Regan National Airport in Washington, D.C. Backups there. That's one of the area. Now, I'm told by FAA officials that the delays are up to 45 minutes now and expected to grow further along.

We believe -- we believe -- I'm in not confident in this yet, but we believe it is a host computer, one of those that accepts information from the other computers, and we believe it's the one at Leesburg, Virginia, which is the Washington end of the Washington ARTCC, and that's fancy language for Air Route Traffic Control Center. It controls flights coming from down in the New York area -- there are centers in New York, of course, but all the way down well into North Carolina are handled by that one particular center, and that would explain why those delays run into this area.

It's a problem they are working on, they say not related to Y2K, but it is a computer problem, and they're working on it. We hope to have a little more information for you pretty soon, Bill.

HEMMER: Carl, I don't want to pick and go in areas where you don't know, but any indication about how long these delays could last? And in addition to that, I'm told dozens of flights at this time. Any concrete number on the number of flights affected?

ROCHELLE: I would tell you dozens of flights sounds about right, but I would also tell you that -- look at this like an accident on the freeway, if you will. The accident may be minor, but if it backs up track in there for, say, half hour or an hour or two hours, the next thing you know, that traffic jam could extend miles and miles in any direction. This is essentially what happens, because they're into something called flow control. These airplanes won't take off until they can get a clear shot through to where their destination is, and as long as the airplanes are not landing in the other area, not being allowed to go in the area, they're backed up.

So, the flight you would have taken at 9:30 or 10:00, this morning, if it leaves at 10:00, that airplane that is taking you would be used as soon as it lands on the ground at another airport. As you well know from travelling, all the passengers get off, they clean the airplane, put the peanuts and the soda on board and reload it and off you go -- they don't put meals on them any more, peanuts and sodas and stuff like that, and off you go in another direction with that plane. Well, it can't make that second flight until it makes the first flight, and that's why you're probably going to see backing up delays all up and down the East Coast, which will affect other areas, because a lot of those flights that connect to Atlanta may connect to Chicago and they connect all the way out to the West Coast. So, look for some major delays.

HEMMER: Carol any yellow flags put up here with regard to safety?

ROCHELLE: No, I wouldn't think so. That's why you're seeing the airplanes slowed down. They can actually do all of this without the computers and without the radar, but it goes very, very slowly, because they go back to the old days when you filed one of those instrument flight plans, and that's one of the plans where the FAA controls the flight all the way through from beginning to the end. All airliners do that, and a lot of general aviation aircraft, too. When you do that, you fill out a piece paper, and that piece of paper's passed on to a controller, and that's passed by telephone to another controller down the line. So, they can function without the system, it just gets a lot slower. And safety's not a factor. Weather's pretty good up and down that area, and...

HEMMER: Yes, looks like a really good day from that live picture we're seeing there. Well, hopefully -- we'll keep our fingers crossed for safety and hopefully that this is just like some big snowstorm that delays things eventually, here.

Carl Rochelle live in Washington, thanks. We'll be in touch, OK, Carl? Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

  ArrowCLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S TOPICS AND GUESTS
ArrowCLICK HERE FOR CNN PROGRAM SCHEDULES
SEARCH CNN.com
Enter keyword(s)   go    help

Back to the top   © 2001 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.