BIZ BUZZ: Unsung hero

By now, everyone has pored over the fiasco that was the complete failure of the country’s air traffic control system on New Year’s Day, one of the busiest travel days of the holiday season. But what few people realize is just how dicey things were in the first few hours of the crisis when no one knew what was happening.

When the entire air traffic management system went down last Sunday, the entire Philippine airspace became a danger zone where aircraft were flying practically blind, without the guidance from ground controllers necessary to keep them from slamming into each other at hundreds of kilometers per hour.

For about three hours, air traffic controllers tried to restore power and reboot the P10-billion computer system. They did this several times but multiple reboots failed to work and radar workstations remained offline.

A few hours later, systems were partially restored allowing for limited flights, mainly those on domestic routes.

But Biz Buzz learned that at the moment the system crashed—past 9 a.m. of Sunday—there were two flights (Qantas and Royal Air) that were actually climbing and descending on the same track simultaneously. It took some quick thinking from the air traffic control supervisor to avert a disaster and make the planes keep their distance from each other.

More importantly, he immediately contacted his counterparts in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam and other adjacent sectors to either divert or reroute aircraft that were heading toward the chaotic Philippine airspace that morning. And he did it all on his personal cellphone, we’re told.

At this point, authorities still cannot fully rule out the possibility of a cyberattack, but are said to be inclined toward the failure of internal controls and processes, along with poor facilities maintenance and management, explanation. But whatever the reason is, what was clear is that the incident exposed thousands of people in the air to high levels of safety risk, not to mention the national security risk caused by authorities being blind for several hours to what was happening over Philippine airspace.

One also has to wonder how the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines was able to pass its regular operational audit with facilities and processes so fragile as they proved to be last Sunday.

So, will heads roll as a result of this fiasco? Or—as the speculation goes—was this incident triggered deliberately to make heads roll? Specifically, perhaps the heads of newly appointed officials who are shaking up the status quo? Abangan!

—Daxim L. Lucas