Terminal Compromise, Winn Schwartau [sight word books txt] 📗

several hours to a

day were announced for most flights. Police were needed to quell

angry crowds who were stuck thousands of miles from home and were

going to miss critical business liaisons. There is nothing we

can do, every airline explained to no avail.

Slowly, the planes were brought down, pilots relying on VFR since

they couldn’t count on any help from the ground. At airports

where weather prohibited VFR landings, and the planes had enough

fuel, they were redirected to nearby airports. Nearly a dozen

emergency landings in a two hours period set new records that the

FAA preferred didn’t exist. A field day for the media, and a

certain decrease in future passenger activity until the shock

wore off.

The National Transportation Safety Board had representatives

monitoring the situation within an hour of the first reports from

Dallas, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Tampa. When all 737’s were

accounted for, the individual airports and the FAA lifted flight

restrictions and left it to the airlines to straighten out the

scheduling mess. One hundred thousand stranded passengers and

almost 30% of the domestic civilian air fleet was grounded.

It was a good thing their reservation computers hadn’t gone down.

Damn good thing.

*

DISASTER IN AIR CREATES PANIC ON GROUND

by Scott Mason

“A national tragedy was avoided today by the quick and brave

actions of hundreds of air traffic controllers and pilots working

in harmony,” a spokesperson for The Department of Transportation

said, commenting on yesterday’s failure of the computerized

transponder systems in Boeing 737 airplanes.

“In the interest of safety for all concerned, 737’s will not be

permitted to fly commercially until a full investigation has

taken place.” the spokesperson continued. “That process should

be complete within 30 days.”

In all, 114 people were sent to hospitals, 29 in serious condi-

tion, as a result of injuries sustained while pilots performed

dangerous gut wrenching maneuvers to avoid mid-air collisions.

Neither Boeing nor the Transportation Safety Board would comment

on how computer errors could suddenly affect so many airplanes at

once, but some computer experts have pointed out the possibility

of sabotage. According to Harold Greenwood, an aeronautic elec-

tronics specialist with Air Systems Design in Alpharetta, Geor-

gia, “there is a real and definite possibility that there has

been a specific attack on the airline computers. Probably by

hackers. Either that or the most devastating computer program-

ming error in history.”

Government officials discounted Greenwood’s theories and said

there is no place for wild speculation that could create panic in

the minds of the public. None the less, flight cancellations

busied the phones at most airlines and travel agencies, while the

gargantuan task of rescheduling thousands of flights with 30%

less planes began. Airline officials who didn’t want to be

quoted estimated that it would take at least a week to bring the

system back together,

Airline fares will increase next Monday by at least 10% and as

much as 40% on some routes that will not be restored fully.

The tone of the press conference held at the DoT was one of both

bitterness and shock as was that of sampled public opinion.

“I think I’ll take the train.”

“Computers? They always blame the computers. Who’s really at

fault?”

“They’re just as bad as the oil companies. Something goes a

little wrong and they jack up the prices.”

The National Transportation Safety Board said it would also

institute a series of preventative maintenance steps on other

airplanes’ computer systems to insure that such a global failure

is never repeated.

Major domestic airlines announced they would try to lease addi-

tional planes from other countries, but could not guarantee prior

service performance for 3 to 6 months. Preliminary estimates

place the cost of this debacle at between $800 Million and $2

Billion if the entire 737 fleet is grounded for only 2 weeks.

The Stock Market reacted poorly to the news, and transportation

stocks dove an average of 27% in heavy trading.

The White House issued a brief statement congratulating the

airline industry for its handling of the situation and wished its

best to all inconvenienced and injured travelers.

Class action suits will be filed next week against the airlines

and Boeing as a result of the computer malfunction. This is Scott

Mason, riding the train.

*

“Doug,” pleaded 39 year old veteran reporter Scott Mason. “Not

another computer virus story . . .” Scott childishly shrugged

his shoulders in mock defeat.

“Stop your whining,” Doug ordered in fun. “You are the special-

ist,” he chided.

When the story first came across the wire, Scott was the logical

choice. In only seven years as a reporter Scott Mason had de-

veloped quite a reputation for himself, and for the New York City

Times. Doug had had to eat his words from years earlier more

times than he cared to remember, but Scott’s head had not swelled

to the size of his fan club, which was the bane of so many suc-

cessful writers. He knew he was good, just like he had told Doug

“There is nothing sexy about viruses anymore,” said Scott trying

to politely ignore his boss to the point he would just leave.

“Christ Almighty,” the chubby balding sixtyish editor exploded.

Doug’s periodic exclamatory outbursts at Scott’s nonchalance on

critical issues were legendary. “The man who puts Cold Fusion on

the front page of every paper in the country doesn’t think a

virus is sexy enough for the public. Good night!”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” Scott had to defend this one. “I

finally got someone to go on the record about the solar payoff

scandals between Oil and Congress . . .”

“Then the virus story will give you a little break,” kidded Doug.

“You’ve been working too hard.”

“Damn it, Doug,” Scott defied. “Viruses are a dime a dozen and

worse, there’s no one behind it, there’s nobody there. There’s

no story . . .”

“Then find one. That’s what we pay you for.” Doug loudly mut-

tered a few choice words that his paper wouldn’t be caught dead

printing. “Besides, you’re the only one left.” As he left he

patted Scott on the back saying, “thanks. Really.”

“God, I hate this job.”

Scott Mason loved his job, after all it was his invention seven

years ago when he first pitched it to Doug. Scott’s original

idea had worked. Scott Mason alone, under the banner of the New

York City Times, virtually pioneered Scientific Journalism as a

media form in its own right.

Scott Mason was still its most vocal proponent, just as he was

when he connived his way into a job with the Times, and without

any journalistic experience. It was a childhood fantasy.

Doug remembered the day clearly. “That’s a new one on me,” Doug

had said with amusement when the mildly arrogant but very likable

Mason had gotten cornered him, somehow bypassing personnel.

Points for aggressiveness, points for creativity and points for

brass balls. “What is Scientific Journalism?”

“Scientific Journalism is stripping away all of the long techni-

cal terms that science hides behind, and bringing the facts to

the people at home.”

“We have a quite adequate Science Section, a computer

column . . .and we pick up the big stories.” Doug had tried to

be polite.

“That’s not what I mean,” Scott explained. “Everybody and his

dead brother can write about the machines and the computers and

the software. I’m talking about finding the people, the meaning,

the impact behind the technology.”

“No one would be interested,” objected Doug.

Doug was wrong.

Scott Mason immediately acclimated to the modus operandi of the

news business and actually locked onto the collapse of Kaypro

Computers and the odd founding family who rode serendipity until

competence was required for survival. The antics of the Kay

family earned Mason a respectable following in his articles and

contributions as well as several libel and slander suits from the

Kays. Trouble was, it’s not against the law to print the truth

or a third party speculations, as long as they’re not malicious.

Scott instinctively knew how to ride the fine edge between false

accusations and impersonal objectivity.

Cold Fusion, the brief prayer for immediate, cheap energy inde-

pendence made headlines, but Scott Mason dug deep and found that

some of the advocates of Cold Fusion had vested interests in

palladium and iridium mining concerns. He also discovered how

the experiments had been staged well enough to fool most experts.

Scott had located one expert who wasn’t fooled and could prove

it. Scott Mason rode the crest of the Cold Fusion story for

months before it became old news and the Hubble Telescope fiasco

took its place.

The fiasco of the Hubble Telescope was nothing new to Scott

Mason’s readers. He had published months before its launch that

the mirrors were defective, but the government didn’t heed the

whistle blower’s advice. The optical measurement computers which

grind the mirrors of the telescope had a software program that

was never tested before being used on the Hubble.