Thread

1. atonse · 1790016937 · focus · HN ↗

   I don't quite understand this sort of thing happening. Wasn't the whole point of the internet to be a self-healing network where we route around severed cables, etc?

   Or is it that these ATC networks are their own air-gapped network with less redundancy? That just doesn't add up. Or maybe there was only one line going to the ATC, with no multiple "ISPs" like a datacenter would have?

   1. bri3d · 1790017634 · focus · HN ↗

      * Yes, TRACON have their own dedicated links. You can look into ASTERIX and STARS to learn some of the cursed ways the data processing and dataflow work.

      * There is supposed to be a primary and a secondary link, in this case the primary failed and the fail-over also failed. It's unclear from the reporting if they were damaged in the same incident or if the failover was not tested or monitored adequately.

      The Philadelphia TRACON site has been notoriously unreliable and was supposedly improved in 2025, it's also unclear if these issue actually could stem from that implementation.

      1. cmiles8 · 1790025730 · focus · HN ↗

         Reporting is saying that the backup was cut a while ago and they only discovered it when the primary failed. Apparently nobody was ping testing the backup link.

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