ATC Radar failure?

[Philip Argy]

Anyone know what's happened at YSSY this morning?

SYDNEY FPL AND RADAR SYSTEM U/S. RESTRICTED DEPS.EXP
DLA ALL FREQ.
START APPROVAL RQ, WHEN READY FOR PUSH BACK OR ENGINE
START,
CTC SYDNEY COORDINATOR ON FREQ 127.6, FOR START TIME

[Reece perram]

Maybe he spilt his coffee? haha

[David C]

Ch7 Sydney are reporting " chaos " and " enormous delays " .. Not sure what defines those descriptions , however , there are reported 45 min delays on the SYD website at the moment .

Dave C

[Greg Hyde]

Sydney domestic and international flights delayed due to air traffic control system fault

Thousands of airline passengers are facing delays, including families heading off for the school holidays, following an air traffic control system failure in Sydney.

Dozens of flights have been cancelled while many more are experiencing delays of more than two hours.

Air Services Australia (ASA) said there had been a "system software failure" at Sydney's air traffic control at 5:00am this morning.

As a result, only a limited number of flights were able to land and depart.
ASA said the glitch had now been resolved but the airlines expected disruptions to continue as they dealt with a massive backlog.

There are long queues at check-in and transfer desks.

Jan Ibbottson is on holidays from the UK and said it was frustrating her flight to the Gold Coast was cancelled.

"I'm very calm about it, but it's chaos," she said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-2...elayed/8980364

First day of school holidays - not great.

Problem rectified by 10:30

[Philip Argy]

Airservices Australia has posted this explanation on its website:

Airservices statement regarding software issue affecting Sydney Airport
25 SEP 2017

Airservices experienced a software issue affecting Sydney Airport’s air traffic control and management system, resulting in major disruptions to flight operations this morning.

The software fault failed to convert from night-shift operations to day-shift operations, consequently one air traffic control console was operational for the morning peak when in normal circumstances six to eight consoles are operating.

The safety of the travelling public is our first priority and traffic capacity was reduced to maintain safety standards.

The fault has now been rectified, and Airservices is now working to resume to normal operations and clear the backlog of flights. Airservices is confident that it was not a cyber incident, it was a hardware failure.

The back log of flights is expected to be cleared by early afternoon. Airservices is urging passengers to contact their airline for details of their flight status.

[Michael Cleary]

Backlog of delayed flights may be cleared, but then there is the 'little' issue of people who got bumped when their flight was cancelled. No easy to rebook on such a busy day.

[Radi K]

More excellent service from the second best ATC system in the world.

Wonder if the 700 job cuts at Airservices in the past 12 months had anything to do with it.

[Michael Cleary]

Just as a matter of interest, does Airservices look after their IT in house, or is it outsourced?

[Mick F]

Radi,
I used to say that too, but having now worked overseas I will never complain about Australian ATC again. Sure it’s frustrating sometimes, but it’s a pretty good system compared to many other places.

Mick