Air Traffic Control

Software problems at air route traffic control centers continue to disrupt the air traffic control system. Since 1987, when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) installed new hardware to help control air traffic, almost 4,000 system software problems have been reported; as of June 30, 1991, more than 1,600 of these problems remained unresolved. FAA's efforts to resolve software problems have been neither timely nor effective. FAA attributes its backlog of software problems and continued reliance on temporary fixes to a lack of necessary resources. It has not, however, developed a plan to identify the resources needed to maintain the en route system until modernization is completed, and it lacks key tools to estimate the resources required for such maintenance.

GAO found that: (1) since 1987, when FAA implemented new hardware, almost 4,000 system software problems have been reported and, as of June 1991, 1,600 problems remained unresolved; (2) FAA considers 74 percent of the unresolved problems to have the potential to adversely affect the air traffic control system; (3) software problems have remained uncorrected for an average of 18 months; (4) FAA effectiveness in reducing problems is limited because it uses temporary fixes for software problems instead of permanently revising software; (5) FAA attributes the backlog of software problems and continued reliance on temporary fixes to a lack of necessary resources; and (6) FAA has not developed a plan identifying the resources needed to maintain the en-route system until modernization is completed and lacks the key tools to estimate the resources required for such maintenance.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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