Closed ATC center in SoCal?

Can someone here explain exactly what had to be closed or evacuated in
Southern California because of fires? The news talked about disruptions
of air traffic throughout the Pacific Southwest and a major ATC center
being put out of order, but no more detail that that. Which ATC center
was it, and where is it physically located?

Aren't ATC centers hardened or something so that they are relatively
protected against natural and unnatural problems? Heck, I'd expect them
to be built a lot like missile silos, so that they can continue to
operate under just about any conditions.

Can other centers take up the slack when this happens, or are certain
types of traffic simply impossible to manage if a given center goes off
the air?

--
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"Mxsmanic" wrote in message ...
Can someone here explain exactly what had to be closed or evacuated in
Southern California because of fires? The news talked about disruptions
of air traffic throughout the Pacific Southwest and a major ATC center
being put out of order, but no more detail that that. Which ATC center
was it, and where is it physically located?

It isn't a center. It was the SoCal (SCT) Tracon. This description from their union site:

SoCal TRACON, the busiest approach control in the world, provides radar air traffic approach control
services to all arriving and departing aircraft for most airports in southern California. Airports receiving
SCT services include Burbank Airport, John Wayne Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, Long
Beach Airport, March AFB, Miramar MCAS, North Island NAS, Ontario Airport, San Diego International
Airport, Van Nuys Airport and many more airports that service general aviation. SCT's airspace covers
an area from 20 miles north of Burbank to the US/Mexican border and from San Bernardino to Santa Catalina Island.

SCT is one of the FAA trends to merge together a bunch of approach controls which used to be located at the
major airport towers. There were 5 merged together here. The other major ones I know about are in New York
and the newly established one in DC.

On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 14:54:00 +0100, Mxsmanic
wrote in Message-Id: :

Can someone here explain exactly what had to be closed or evacuated in
Southern California because of fires?

SoCal TRACON.

The news talked about disruptions
of air traffic throughout the Pacific Southwest and a major ATC center
being put out of order, but no more detail that that. Which ATC center
was it, and where is it physically located?

SoCal TRACON is located adjacent to the Miramar Marine Corps Air
Station: http://www.airnav.com/airport/KNKX

Aren't ATC centers hardened or something so that they are relatively
protected against natural and unnatural problems? Heck, I'd expect them
to be built a lot like missile silos, so that they can continue to
operate under just about any conditions.

The building that houses SoCal TRACON is of conventional construction
with a brick facade and drywall clad partitions.

Can other centers take up the slack when this happens, or are certain
types of traffic simply impossible to manage if a given center goes off
the air?

It is my understanding that Los Angeles Center is currently fulfilling
the duties of SoCal TRACON at reduced traffic counts.

Ron Natalie writes:

SCT is one of the FAA trends to merge together a bunch of approach
controls which used to be located at the major airport towers. There
were 5 merged together here. The other major ones I know about
are in New York and the newly established one in DC.

Maybe the FAA should revisit that policy. Single nodes of failure
aren't always a good idea. I can understand it for ATC that is more or
less evenly dispersed over a large region, but I don't see that it's
such a good idea for ATC involving small areas like airports.
Logically, you'd want the latter very near the airport. If the airport
goes down, it doesn't matter if the ATC goes down--and if the airport is
still operating, than the ATC will probably be operating, too. But if
the two are very separated geographically, you end up with an airport
area with no ATC, which is a bad thing.

So who took over? Or did everything just stop?

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Larry Dighera writes:

The building that houses SoCal TRACON is of conventional construction
with a brick facade and drywall clad partitions.

So security guards have people taking off their shoes at every airport
in the U.S., while a single suicide bomber could knock out ATC for half
the Southwest? Is the government really looking in the right places for
vulnerabilities?

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 16:56:54 +0100, Mxsmanic
wrote in Message-Id: :

Ron Natalie writes:

SCT is one of the FAA trends to merge together a bunch of approach
controls which used to be located at the major airport towers. There
were 5 merged together here. The other major ones I know about
are in New York and the newly established one in DC.

Maybe the FAA should revisit that policy. Single nodes of failure
aren't always a good idea.

Agreed. Failure of a single decentralized facility impacts less
airspace.

I can understand it for ATC that is more or less evenly dispersed over a large
region, but I don't see that it's such a good idea for ATC involving small areas
like airports.

SoCal TRACON only deals with approach and departure operations that
occur over an the area encompassing Los Angeles, San Bernardino,
Riverside, Orange, Imperial, and San Diego counties.

Logically, you'd want the latter very near the airport. If the airport
goes down, it doesn't matter if the ATC goes down--and if the airport is
still operating, than the ATC will probably be operating, too. But if
the two are very separated geographically, you end up with an airport
area with no ATC, which is a bad thing.

So who took over?

Los Angeles Center is/was providing approach/departure control to LAX.

Or did everything just stop?

Nope. It just reduced operations to about half.

On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 16:58:18 +0100, Mxsmanic
wrote in Message-Id: :

Larry Dighera writes:

The building that houses SoCal TRACON is of conventional construction
with a brick facade and drywall clad partitions.

So security guards have people taking off their shoes at every airport
in the U.S., while a single suicide bomber could knock out ATC for half
the Southwest?

Doubtful. Visitors to SoCal TRACON must present their ID at the guard
shack located some distance from the building proper.

As demonstrated by the current evacuation of SoCal TRACON, "ATC for
half of the southwest" is still in operation by other ATC facilities.

Is the government really looking in the right places for
vulnerabilities?

I believe they are trying the to the best of their _ability_. :-)

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
Larry Dighera writes:

The building that houses SoCal TRACON is of conventional construction
with a brick facade and drywall clad partitions.

So security guards have people taking off their shoes at every airport
in the U.S., while a single suicide bomber could knock out ATC for half
the Southwest? Is the government really looking in the right places for
vulnerabilities?

Different impact. Knocking down an airliner with a bomb will do as it is
intended and kill all on board. Aside from killing the people in the TRACON,
the cessation of air traffic control will not cause all the planes under its
control to come crashing down or into each other. They will find a way to
land VFR with a good chance of landing safely. Either that or deviate to
another manned sector or center.

Marco








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"Marco Leon" mleon(at)optonline.net wrote in message ...

Different impact. Knocking down an airliner with a bomb will do as it is
intended and kill all on board. Aside from killing the people in the TRACON,
the cessation of air traffic control will not cause all the planes under its
control to come crashing down or into each other. They will find a way to
land VFR with a good chance of landing safely. Either that or deviate to
another manned sector or center.

Didn't you see Die Hard 2? ;-)

Actually, most of the Center's (and some of the non-tower based tracons) have
pretty good security. You can't get anywhere near the buildings at ZDC.

My favorite was that after the OKC bombings I think, they blocked off the parking
spaces (a significant loss in parking) in front of the Leesburgh AFSS. Security, right.
Someone might blow up the FSS. This would be a imperceptable blip in the nation's
transportation infrastructure as the 800 lines all failed over to Altoona. The biggest
threat these guys were in was that some stupid terrorist mistook them for ZDC down
the street. (The local media tends to do so regularly).

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Ron Natalie writes:

SCT is one of the FAA trends to merge together a bunch of approach
controls which used to be located at the major airport towers. There
were 5 merged together here. The other major ones I know about
are in New York and the newly established one in DC.

Maybe the FAA should revisit that policy.

LOL, FAA is actively exploring ways to privatize the entire terminal system,
cashier the airways technicians who maintain the NAS infrastructure,
outsource the Flight Service Stations and shrink the 20 continental ARTCC's
into 3 mega facilities to save money. They can't be bothered by little
things like system redundancy, because it costs money. We need to run FAA
just like Enron and MCI, because American Government should work *exactly*
like any other "business". Afterall, we have to save every penny that we
can. We can rebuild Iraq, bail out the airline industy via corporate
welfare, and simulateneously give everyone that big tax cut if we just shave
some more off of aviation safety services.

Single nodes of failure
aren't always a good idea. I can understand it for ATC that is more or
less evenly dispersed over a large region, but I don't see that it's
such a good idea for ATC involving small areas like airports.
Logically, you'd want the latter very near the airport. If the airport
goes down, it doesn't matter if the ATC goes down--and if the airport is
still operating, than the ATC will probably be operating, too. But if
the two are very separated geographically, you end up with an airport
area with no ATC, which is a bad thing.

So who took over? Or did everything just stop?


Los Angeles ARTCC (ZLA) took over the airspace. There are contingency
procedures for the emergency closings of every ATC facility in the NAS.
These plans are pretty complicated. Basically, the ARTCC's own all of the
airspace. They delegate chunks of Center airspace to the various Tracons
and terminal facilities in order to expedite the handling of terminal
operations. In a Letter of Agreement between SCT and ZLA, there is likely a
contingency clause which spells out that ZLA retakes the airspace that they
delegated to SCT. In so doing, ZLA uses Center ARSR radar, which forces an
increase in the separation between aircraft from three miles to five miles.
This is causing a massive traffic delay in the SCT airspace, but least the
airspace isn't completely shut down.

Chip, ZTL