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ATC outage in Switzerland this morning.

Quite a few people were rubbing their eyes this morning…. The Skyguide IT system failed spectacularly this morning resulting into a total airspace closure until roughly 0630 UTC, so a full 2:30 hours for the airports in Switzerland.

The result was quite spectacular: ATC ZERO rate, longhauls diverting all over the place (Basle thankfully controlled by French ATC, Milan, Munich; Vienna, Frankfurt and some more), no departures until 0630UTC and tons of cancellations.

Reason is being investigated but apparently a failure of a central component for which redundant systems are supposed to exist but obviously don’t.

The failure reached as far as coms systems so that the relevant NOTAM had to be published by Austrocontrol.

«A0394/22 – SWISS AIRSPACE IS CLOSED FOR IFR AND VFR TRAFFIC.)
AUSTRIAN NOF DISTRIBUTES THIS NOTAM ON BEHALF OF THE SWISS NOF
DUE TO A CONTINGENCY SITUATION. 15 JUN 05:48 2022 UNTIL 15 JUN 07:00 2022 ESTIMATED.
CREATED: 15 JUN 05:50 2022»

Departures from Altenrhein apparently were not affected, however the rest of Switzerland was shut solid. (Geneva as well).

Why VFR (other than such which require a fpl) I don’t quite get. Most did not get the NOTAM in time anyway so some hot air balloons and light VFR was actually under way during the airspace shut down.

First landing after 2-30 of closure was an American flight which was abeam while diverting to MUC.

Would be interesting to see how such a failure would be handled elsewhere. In full CAVOK I guess at least inbounds would have had a good chance to land visually or with minimal procedural control instead of sending over 20 widebodies all over Europe.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Skyguide IT system failed spectacularly this morning resulting into a total airspace closure until roughly 0630 UTC, so a full 2:30 hours for the airports in Switzerland

Yep, and this affected all aircraft, as, as we all know, aerodynamics are heavily dependent upon the so aptly named Skyguide (GMAB) entity…
Another great auto-goal for the over organised self sufficient and highly praised Swiss system, well done. I’m once more really proud as to how our tax money is being spent, invested into safety and sustainability into a very expensive and mostly useless “democratic” system. Bureaucracy, we became, and will forever be…

Dan
ain't the Destination, but the Journey
LSZF, Switzerland

Obviously, there is no way to run things in a pragmatic way? using Unicom & TCAS and remote controllers and come up with something creative like this:




Makes me worry about the reliability of those drone-taxis and eVTOL given how ATC tend to close the whole sky of 500nm×500nm×60kft due to SkyNet glitches, GPS jamming in VMC, Volcanic Ash in Hawaii and London Olympics

For future autonomus flying-cars & drone-taxis, weather like strong winds or heavy rain is the least of their worries

Last Edited by Ibra at 15 Jun 20:46
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Ibra wrote:

using Unicom & TCAS and remote controllers and come up with something creative like this:

Not quite. In this case – impressive as it was! – KLAS TWR was closed, but App and Center were operational. My understanding from @Mooney_Driver’s post is that the entire system in Switzerland went down. Different kettle of fish….

I was just giving an illustrative example, there should be some low level backup or creative solution deep down there? of course if you apply the CYA principal: all aircraft will fall out of the sky due to ATC software glitch, including non-radio J3 Cubs

In another thread, we learned that ATC in Spain can’t clear you for ILS in VMC if some tower QNH device is not working, I am not surprised the whole sky will melt down due to ATC software…not very reassuring with cyberwar threats !

Last Edited by Ibra at 15 Jun 21:15
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Ibra wrote:

I am not surprised the whole sky will melt down due to ATC software

No, no software at play here. Only “human” stupidity… if only I had enough tears to cry out loud.

Dan
ain't the Destination, but the Journey
LSZF, Switzerland
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