UK Air traffic control system was taken down by an ambiguous flight plan

Re:UK Air traffic control system was taken down by an ambigu... by beardyw on Friday September 08, 2023 @04:04AM (#37430872)

Yes,but we've all been there.

> two separate waypoints which – although geographically distant – had identical designators.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:UK Air traffic control system was taken down by an ambigu... by adhvaryu on Friday September 08, 2023 @04:26AM (#37431024)

Imagine the dread if they find out who wrote the code.

Also to be honest, shouldn't this have been better unit tested? Considering aviation is a ~ £60 billion industry for the UK.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:UK Air traffic control system was taken down by an ambigu... by monooso on Friday September 08, 2023 @05:36AM (#37431520)

In their defence, they did manage to process 15 million flight paths before encountering this problem. Some bugs are just really difficult to predict.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:UK Air traffic control system was taken down by an ambigu... by krisoft on Friday September 08, 2023 @05:55AM (#37431641)

> Also to be honest, shouldn't this have been better unit tested?

We don't know how well it was tested. (unit or otherwise)

What we know that it has processed 15 millions of flight plans previously without revealing this flaw. So they must have got some things right.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:UK Air traffic control system was taken down by an ambigu... by throwaway154 on Friday September 08, 2023 @06:21AM (#37431802)

Not a unit test problem.

Relying on it's unit tested strong systems does not make. There's a lot more to testing.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:UK Air traffic control system was taken down by an ambigu... by petesergeant on Friday September 08, 2023 @06:40AM (#37431923)

> shouldn't this have been better unit tested

Entirely possible there was a unit test that confirmed the system would error out in this particular condition. This sounds more like a requirements issue.

[ Parent | on HN ]