WHO SHUT DOWN AMERICA’S AIRLINES?

January 13, 2023 -Durt Fibo

Not much detail has been allowed out to explain how every flight in the US was grounded on January 11. What information has been established by reporters and spokespersons, is that the omnipresent system controlling American airspace -NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions)- had cascaded into a total system shutdown due to a mistake made by the same sort of feckless moron who builds your websites and rich people’s social media platforms.

Two specifics, however, escaped into the public realm via the excuses and complaints issued from the mouths of some of the people who had to deal with the emergency. First: that the entire program is three decades old and known to be needing replacing -which is not scheduled before 2029; and second: that a simple software file transfer -part of a “routine scheduled maintenance”- was either corrupt or unnecessarily swapped for another. With the present construct, no fail-safe was in place to stop the one fault from flooding through the entire system.

The person, or persons (for now, an estimated eight had access) switching the files has been obscurely referred to a a “contractor.” In keeping with the above analogy, it is usually the same entity which designed a given IT system that cements itself into the eternal “maintenance” contract, so that they might best serve you by incessantly patching over their original mistakes. Especially when usage and requirements follow real-world developments. If this is the case with NOTAM, although as yet unreported, that entity contracted for “routine scheduled maintenance” would be a company called Jeppensen, or subcontractors selected by them. Jeppensen in turn is owned by Boeing.

Jeppensen began in 1934, selling homemade aviator charts, and attained maturity with its engagement to the US military in WWII. In 2020 it was incorporated into the Boeing Company. While Jeppensen designed the early NOTAM, it was integrated into the governmental purlieu of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Boeing, of course manufactures for both civil and military purposes, so, while a part of the company remains under FAA guidelines, the other is accountable to the military demi-monde; as recently as the summer of 2022 it collected a $5 billion Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) System Integration, Test, and Readiness (SITR) contract from the Missile Defense Agency.

So, while a subcontracted computer maintenance pinhead or two might get put out onto the cold streets for the nation-wide shutdown, those of us constrained to live in the physical world are left to decide where the ultimate responsibilty lies; with the governmental agency, with Jeppensen, or with Boeing.

To assist you in your decision making, here is the spiffy website of the infallible Jeppensen (a Boeing Company). Motto: “Our future: Fearless innovation” https://ww2.jeppesen.com/

And here is one of the earliest papers (1992) published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) on the eternal wonders of the Jeppensen Worldwide Electronic NOTAM Service then being readied to replace the existing Jeppensen flight systems monopoly. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/185866