美国国家公共电台 NPR--Flights were grounded across the U.S. as the FAA scrambled to fix a system outage

Flights were grounded across the U.S. as the FAA scrambled¹ to fix a system outage

Transcript²

President Biden ordered an investigation³ into what happened. NPR's Dwane Brown talks to Leslie Josephs, an airline reporter with CNBC, about theissue with a pre-flight safety notification system.

DWANE BROWN, HOST:

The U.S. aviation sector⁴ is slowly returning to normal this morning after a computer outage caused disruptions nationwide.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Yeah, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all U.S. departing flights yesterday morning for 90 minutes so the issue could be fixed⁵. The outage of a preflight safety notification system called NOTAM forced airlines to cancel more than 1,300 flights and delay nearly 10,000 more. The FAA says it's investigating what happened. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg called it another challenging day for U.S. aviation.

BROWN: Oh, yeah. In fact, to learn more about what happened, we're joined by reporter Leslie Josephs. She covers airlines for CNBC. Leslie, I'm sure folks who aren't flying this week are happy. Have authorities discovered what caused the system to go down?

LESLIE JOSEPHS: They do have a rough idea of what caused it, and it's linked back to this corrupted⁶ database file that appeared to be getting uploaded, and then they thought the issue was fixed. All of this goes back to Tuesday afternoon, you know, more than 12 hours before passengers started to really feel the impact. They thought it was fixed. Then they had to go back. They realized they had the same problem, and then they essentially⁷ decided⁸ to pull the plug and start the system over again.

BROWN: And this is quite an old system, right? It goes back to the '50s.

JOSEPHS: It does. I mean, they are in the process of modernizing⁹ it. The issue is with this bad file. And if you've ever tried to attach something to an email that, you know, maybe it was a corrupted file and you just kept hitting the same wall and the person receiving the email wasn't able to open it...

BROWN: Right.

JOSEPHS: Their backup system was getting the same bad data. That's what we've heard. So they were unable to address it. And, you know, this is one of those cases where redundancy didn't help them at all.

BROWN: Yeah. Have we ever seen a tech error like this before?

JOSEPHS: I certainly haven't in my five years on the beat, talked to pilots who said they've never seen it in decades. So it is very, very unusual. It's also unusual what the FAA did, which was essentially shut down the air system, prevent any planes from taking off. Usually you see this in, you know, pockets when there's bad weather or, you know, one airline has their own IT outage, and they want to slow down their arrivals. So this is extremely unusual. Like you said, it only lasted about 90 minutes, but the residual¹⁰ delay - you know, a lot of these planes had nowhere to park. So this lasted all day. About 10,000 flights in total were delayed yesterday.

BROWN: My goodness. More of a inconvenience issue than a safety issue because no planes took off, but we do recall Southwest and its big meltdown over the holidays. Now, do these two events suggest maybe a bigger problem within aviation technology?

JOSEPHS: Well, the technology that underpins¹¹ the aviation system - and we have the most complex and busiest air system in the world.

BROWN: Right.

JOSEPHS: It is old, and it does need to be updated. It's just hard to update it. You need funding for the FAA, of course. You know, they need more money. They need more people to do that - certainly same thing with airlines. But it takes a long time. It's not something that you could, you know, just download a new OS and there you are. So, you know, FAA - it's also a political issue, and it's a big question of funding. You know, Southwest is dealing¹² with their own issues - different platforms, but again, this - these issues seem to come up again and again.

BROWN: Yeah. Leslie Josephs, thank you for joining us. She's an airline reporter for CNBC.

JOSEPHS: My pleasure.

1 scrambled   

v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞

参考例句：

• Each scrambled for the football at the football ground. 足球场上你争我夺。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He scrambled awkwardly to his feet. 他笨拙地爬起身来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

4 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

5 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

6 corrupted   

（使）败坏( corrupt的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏

参考例句：

• The body corrupted quite quickly. 尸体很快腐烂了。
• The text was corrupted by careless copyists. 原文因抄写员粗心而有讹误。

7 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

8 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

9 modernizing   

使现代化，使适应现代需要( modernize的现在分词 )； 现代化，使用现代方法

参考例句：

• Modernizing a business to increase its profitability and competitiveness is a complicated affair. 使企业现代化，从而达到增加利润，增强竞争力的目的，是一件复杂的事情。
• The young engineer had a large share in modernizing the factory. 这位年轻工程师在工厂现代化的过程中尽了很大的“力”。

10 residual   

adj.复播复映追加时间；存留下来的，剩余的

参考例句：

• There are still a few residual problems with the computer program.电脑程序还有一些残留问题。
• The resulting residual chromatism is known as secondary spectrum.所得到的剩余色差叫做二次光谱。

11 underpins   

n.基础材料( underpin的名词复数 )；基础结构；（学说、理论等的）基础；（人的）腿v.用砖石结构等从下面支撑（墙等）( underpin的第三人称单数 )；加固（墙等）的基础；为（论据、主张等）打下基础；加强

参考例句：

• A powerful sense of mission underpins everything he does. 一种强烈的使命感支撑他所做的一切。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His presence at the crime underpins the case against him. 案子发生时他在场对他更不利。 来自辞典例句

12 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。