洛杉磯國際機場因一部電腦故障大亂

LAX outage is blamed on a single computer
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-me-lax15aug15,1,6802259.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=1&cset=true

起先是一張失效的網路卡，接著是電源供應器損壞。它們正在調查，是不是因為網路卡導致電源供應器損壞。不過我認為，應該是後者影響了前者，基本上網路卡很難壞，倒是電源供應器與硬碟，經常故障。目前眾議院議員 Jane Harman 要求它們在下週提出簡報。另外目前有計畫要更新美國主要國際機場的 IT 系統，LAX 預計在 2008 年 10 月完工。

City officials demand a full report on the U.S. Customs system failure and contingency plans.

By Tami Abdollah, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 15, 2007

U.S. Customs officials said Tuesday that they had traced the source of last weekend's system outage that left 17,000 international passengers stranded in airplanes to a malfunctioning network interface card on a single desktop computer in the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX.

The card, which allows computers to connect to a local area network, experienced a partial failure that started about 12:50 p.m. Saturday, slowing down the system, said Jennifer Connors, a chief in the office of field operations for the Customs and Border Protection agency.

As data overloaded the system, a domino effect occurred with other computer network cards, eventually causing a total system failure a little after 2 p.m., Connors said.

"All indications are there was no hacking, no tampering, no terrorist link, nothing like that," she said. "It was an internal problem" contained to the Los Angeles International Airport system.

The system was restored about nine hours later, only to give out again late Sunday for about 80 minutes, until about 1:15 a.m. Monday. The second outage was caused by a power supply failure, Connors said. But customs officials are investigating whether the Saturday incident may have played a role in Sunday's outage.

Los Angeles City Council members Bill Rosendahl and Janice Hahn called Tuesday for an immediate report from Los Angeles World Airports, which runs LAX, on actions taken by the customs agency to permanently correct the computer malfunction problem. They also called for World Airports to report on contingency plans for working with customs and other officials to properly deal with passengers in the event of another such breakdown.

Nancy Castles, a spokeswoman for the airports agency, said airport and customs officials are discussing how to handle a similar incident should it occur. The customs agency "has total federal jurisdiction on whether or not to allow people on or off the planes," Castles said.

During the incident, the customs agency authorized airport officials to supply food, water and even diapers to stranded passengers, as well as fuel to keep air-conditioning systems running on planes.

Also Tuesday, Rep Jane Harman (D-Venice) requested a comprehensive briefing from customs officials in Washington early next week.

Customs and Border Protection agency spokesman Michael Fleming said the agency had formed a group in Washington to study the system malfunction: "how it happened, how we're going to address it . . . . "

A plan was already in place this year to update and replace customs' entire information technology system at major international airports, with work at LAX scheduled to be completed by October 2008, Connors said.