The FAA says it will improve contingency plans so it can better react to emergencies like the fire at Chicago Center in September. An internal review of the response after the sabotage and attempted suicide that shut down one of the country’s busiest ATC facilities says more airspace flexibility and a plan for staff deployment to other FAA sites are needed to ensure minimal disruption to the system. “Current infrastructure can be reconfigured to adapt in emergency situations, but the time it takes is measured in days, when today’s system demands that it be measured in hours,” fedscoop.com quoted the report as saying last week.
The goal is to not only maintain 90 percent of the system capacity during the initial stages of the emergency but to be able to sustain the alternative services for a period of months if necessary. New systems to automate flight data distribution and hand-offs and other technology upgrades planned for 2018 should make it easier to cope with future emergencies. NextGen deployment should also give emergency response a technological boost. “This incident in Chicago is a stark reminder of the reasons the FAA is working toward an even more robust and scalable system,” fedscoop.com quoted the report as saying. “The FAA is examining how to best utilize NextGen capabilities to meet resiliency, contingency and continuity needs so that services could be made available quickly if capabilities are lost.”
