The Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS) says that a new federal audit confirms its fears that the Federal Aviation Administration‘s (FAA) mishandled efforts so far to merge various air traffic control (ATC) telecommunications data systems into one new system will continue causing unpredictable ATC data outages.
The April 27 audit by the Department of Transportation Inspector General (IG) focuses on how FAA is managing the transition of seven existing systems into one new system, known as the Federal Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI). Among other things, IG says FAA must develop a realistic master schedule for the overall transition, while paying closer attention to all the steps in converting new sites to FTI. To most of OIG’s recommendations, FAA says it fully concurs and gives various projected completion dates, none of which are later than this September.
Some of the IG’s conclusions also are based on a July 2005 technical assessment of FTI by the nonprofit Mitre Corporation.
PASS, which says it represents more than 11,000 FAA employees including those who install and support ATC equipment, has long been critical of FAA’s handling of the FTI transition and its management of the prime contractor, the Harris Corporation. The most recent statement from PASS on this issue is from May 8, and has the heading “FAA still allowing contractors to run amok.” In it, PASS says that an FAA systems specialist spent more than an hour in Little Rock, Ark., on April 11, helping a Harris subcontractor determine that a modem needed replacement in West Helena, Ark. The day before in Forth Worth, Texas, another Harris worker accidentally switched circuits causing a two-hour outage. In the latter case, at least, there was a backup system while repairs were made.
But at Little Rock Nat’l Airport (LIT), the backup radar system is now the one with the ongoing circuitry problems, PASS says in another May 8 statement. “Circuitry failure in the only FTI line has crashed the system for 20 seconds every night since Thanksgiving,” the union says.
“Time and again, our systems specialists are cleaning up after the messes create by these contractors,” PASS says.
To that, John O’Sullivan, Harris FTI program vice president, tells Air Safety Week, “We have not received any reports of ‘messes’ left behind by FTI personnel from either the FAA FTI program office or any of the FAA regions.”
From a safety viewpoint, 20 seconds is a long time for a data blackout, PASS insists. “Planes can move a long distance in as little as five seconds, so losing an aircraft for 20 seconds is not a trivial matter,” says Dave Spero, PASS regional vice president.
Commercial aircraft cover a lot of airspace in that same amount of time. If two of them are suddenly coming too close to each other, a 20-second blackout means ATC personnel can’t immediately communicate course corrections to the pilots, says PASS President Tom Brantley. What makes the constant outages particularly hazardous is no one, least of all ATC, knows when they’re about to occur.
Moreover, outages are probably far more widespread than indicated by the anecdotal information from Arkansas and Texas, Brantley tells Air Safety Week. Those incidents only reflect what PASS has been able to track down so far and attribute to FTI.
The IG says that a large part of the problem is that, until recently, FAA’s program office has been overly focused on just one element of the FTI transition process, known as “site acceptance,” which essentially is the installation of FTI equipment. It has paid less attention to three other important transition steps, which consist of “service acceptance,” whereby the installed systems are checked out to meet performance specifications, “service cutover” in which the new FTI equipment is turned on, and “legacy disconnect,” when the old system is turned off.
To make the full national transition to FTI from today’s seven separate data systems by the original deadline date of December 2007, the IG says FAA is hoping to accomplish a near tenfold increase in cutovers and disconnects from 2005 to 2006 (which appears to conflict with the table FAA provides the IG).
But “this is a high-risk assumption that is not realistic,” the IG says. “We note that FAA has already failed to achieve its service cutover and legacy service disconnect goals for the first quarter of [fiscal year] 2006.”
FAA, meanwhile, tells the IG that the agency is taking numerous steps to get the process back on track. In conjunction with its regional offices, Harris and Verizon [VZ], FAA says it will validate a master schedule by June 30. This master schedule will include detailed schedules of all four steps in the service transition. Verizon is the legacy provider of the largest system being merged into FTI, the Leased Interfacility National Airspace System Communications System.
PASS’s Brantley worries that FAA is now wrongly focused on revising its transition schedule and catching up as quickly as possible. This means even less emphasis on uncovering where problems actually occur, and nipping them in the bud. As things stand now, its usually a controller who first notices a problem.
Rather, the transition should be transparent or invisible to the controllers, Brantley adds. FAA needs to put the transition process on hold if that’s what it takes to ensure the safe build-up of FTI capacity. The agency should also stick to the often-heard motto, “first, do no harm,” and proceed with the transition in an “orderly and known matter.” During installation, competent people should be at-the-ready to troubleshoot any problems.
Also, “because neither the FTI program office nor Harris fully understood site requirements, the scope and complexity of the FTI transition were underestimated,” the IG says. Without a site survey, officials initially assumed new FTI systems would be required for 1,374 sites and existing telecommunications equipment could be reused at another 3,000 sites. Eventually, officials realized that FTI would be needed at more than 4,400 sites. Instead meeting the initial December 2007 rollout date, FTI is likely to be completed nearly two years later, by November 2009.
Brantley agrees that the increased awareness of the project’s complexity is likely wearing on Harris. “There’s probably some infighting going on” because the firm wants more money from FAA, he says.
In response, Harris’ O’Sullivan tells Air Safety Week that there are no contract disputes with FAA, and categorizes the Harris-agency partnership as “outstanding.” Out of the nearly 4,500 total FTI sites, more than 1,400 have already been accepted by the FAA, including most of the largest and complex sites. On May 10, the firm announced the first site acceptance of an FTI satellite communications site. The site is in Key West, Fla., and will serve the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center. Harris will upgrade 41 more FTI sites with satellite communications equipment.
The current FTI problems are indicative of an unfortunate decision FAA made early on in the process, which was to exclude its field employees from figuring out the best way to roll out the new system, Brantley adds. FAA’s administration doesn’t have the proper expertise. There are too many program people overseeing the transition who don’t have the technical background.
Because of project delays, the IG also finds that FAA’s initial projected cost savings (of $820 million cumulatively by 2017) are rapidly evaporating. Besides the re-evaluation of sites that need new FTI equipment, additional money is being paid to legacy providers like Verizon to keep the old services going.
While focusing on site acceptance, FAA only managed to get 3 percent of the legacy disconnects completed by the end of fiscal year 2005 (Sept. 30, 2005), the IG says. This left a huge backlog of work. (A table summarizing actual and planned FTI transition milestones is on p. xxxx.) The OIG report, “Report on FAA Telecommunications Infrastructure Program: FAA Needs To Take Steps To Improve Management Congrols and Reduce Schedule Risks,” AV-2006-047, is at http://www.oig.dot.gov/item.jsp?id=1795.
>>Contact: Kori Blalock, PASS, (202) 293-7277<<