Over 200 flights delayed due to software bug: don't fly above 65535 feet

The U.S. Air Force reconnaissance aircraft caused a major malfunction in the software of the California air traffic control center, which had to delay the departure of hundreds of civilian flights at several airports in the southwestern US region and unscheduledly land planes that were sent to this region, NBC News reported. .

Although official agencies did not provide comprehensive information about the causes of the crash, unofficial sources say that the cause is the new traffic monitoring system, which was installed at some airports in California and which mistakenly tried to prevent a plane from colliding with commercial flights.

The U-2 flew at an altitude of over 60,000 feet (over 18 km) above sea level and could not cause problems to civilian vessels at a much lower altitude. He flies over California and other regions at such an altitude for decades, and never had a problem. But recently a new flight monitoring software was installed at the airports as part of the ERAM (En Route Automation Modernization) project, the project cost was $ 2.1 billion. Most likely, the new system mistakenly interpreted the U-2 flight altitude and considered that it could affect other flights.

There is speculation that the cause of the software failure was the ability of the U-2 to fly above 65,535 feet. However, the U-2 transmitter is capable of reporting arbitrary coordinates of its height to ground stations. By default, it is programmed to a maximum value of FL600 (60,000 feet), and even if the plane flies much higher, they will still transmit the FL600 value.

Another version is that it was some kind of new modification of the aircraft with a new transmitter. Perhaps he nevertheless passed over 65,535 feet to the base, and the new ERAM software did not respond well. But the thousands of passengers who are late for flights are no better off.