Doug
My take is that regardless of whether the ATC radios are working or not the safer option would be to get all aircraft to continue to their flight planned destination. Why? Because: 1. That’s where they’ve planned and briefed to go and are already expected there with a reasonably accurate approximation of arrival time. 2. It will prevent further increased workload for the crew, whose workload will already be several levels above normal. 3. Unlike 9-11 there’s no security threat that warrants and immediate grounding of all airborne aircraft. I do agree with the ground stop. Continuing on the filed flight plan is the normal procedure expected by pilots and ATC in the event of a comms failure in the aircraft so why not stick to a philosophy and procedures that are already in place? If ATC have radios then they can co-ordinate arrivals procedurally, giving each arriving aircraft an approach time to leave its particular arrival waypoint. ATC can juggle this with whoever screams loudest for low fuel (which shouldn’t be a problem as they all should be carrying standard IFR reserves and one would hope that any pilot with an IQ above moronic level would have started to conserve fuel as soon as they realised stuff was hitting the fan). Or the aircraft themselves can trade arrival slots. I’ve done this before when a runway has been taken out by an aircraft temporarily blocking it. If ATC have no radios then you’ll find that the pilots will make a pretty good fist of co-ordinating arrivals themselves, using a mixture of the standard arrivals frequencies backed up by the emergency “guard” frequency. Added to this would be any additional comms provided directly to aircraft via ACARS and satphones. I would expect the ATC units could further assist co-ordination via airline operations. Those aircraft not ACARS or satcom equipped – and there are still plenty of those around – would get messages relayed to them by the other aircraft regarding expected approach times. This was common in the trans-Atlantic days of intermittent or poor HF which wasn’t that long ago and worked pretty well. And as long as TCAS remains functional it will provide an essential fall back option. I’ll bet the controllers would switch to paper strips for co-ordination pretty quickly. Simon From: Doug Church via Mifnet <[email protected]> Sent: 21 October 2025 22:39 To: [email protected] Cc: Jack Keady <[email protected]>; Doug Church <[email protected]> Subject: [Mifnet 🛰 74542] Re: what if it went totally dark? Hi Jack, Can I assume the radios still work in that terrible scenario, just not the scopes? If so, I'm guessing the first thing would be to instruct every aircraft to enter a holding pattern and stay in place. Then issue a nationwide ground stop. Nothing takes off. Everything airborne lands at the nearest airport, just like 9/11. Controllers and pilots would work together to figure out the sequencing and getting everyone down safely, giving priority to any emergency fuel situations declared. Just my assumption. -Doug Church On Tue, Oct 21, 2025 at 2:36 PM Jack Keady via Mifnet <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: keady - below message prompts the question: what if the entire ATC system went totally dark in the middle of the day? I'm assuming all flights would continue per flight plan and that unicom would still be useful.near the airfield, helped of course by TCAS. Is this true? This question raised by thoughts of both mechanical failure but also deliberate sabotage. If you see the movie One Battle After Another it portrays a sinister group that secretly operates to cause mayhem. It's only a movie of course but China or Russia...............nuff said <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/urdmCylCtemQrShUaDcfqkaleVbz?format=multipart> Airline operations disrupted by Amazon Web Services outage Amazon Web Services experienced a significant outage Monday, causing technical issues for major airlines such as Delta Air Lines and United Airlines. Customers were unable to check in or access reservations through airline websites and apps, leading to minor delays for Delta and system glitches for United. United utilized backup systems to restore operations, while Delta reported that significant customer impact was not expected to continue. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Revised: 20250507 You are receiving The Mifnet because you requested to join this list. The Mifnet is largely a labor of love, however the infrastructure isn't exactly cost-free. 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-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Revised: 20250507 You are receiving The Mifnet because you requested to join this list. The Mifnet is largely a labor of love, however the infrastructure isn't exactly cost-free. If you'd care to make a small contribution to the effort, please know that it would be greatly appreciated: https://wardell.us/url/mifbit All posts sent to the list should abide by these policies: 1) List members acknowledge that participation in Mifnet is a privilege--not a right. 2) Posts are always off the record, absent specific permission from the author. 3) The tone of discussions is collegial. 4) Posts are expected to be in reasonably good taste. 5) We discuss ideas and not personalities, and we don't speak ill of other Mifnet members. * The Mifnet WEB SITE is: https://www.mifnet.com/ * To UNSUBSCRIBE from this list at any time please visit: https://lists.mifnet.com/ OR: SEND THIS MESSAGE via email: [email protected]?subject=leave * Send Mifnet mailing list POSTS/SUBMISSIONS to: [email protected] * You may reach the person managing The Mifnet at: [email protected] * Please consider the DIGEST version of The Mifnet, which consolidates all list traffic into 1-3 messages daily. See instructions at: https://lists.mifnet.com/ * Manage your personal Mifnet SUBSCRIPTION at: https://lists.mifnet.com/ * For a list of all available Mifnet commands, SEND THIS MESSAGE via email: [email protected]?subject=help * View The Mifnet LIST POLICIES and PRIVACY POLICY at: https://mifnet.com/index.php/policies * View instructions for Mifnet DELIVERY PROBLEMS at: https://mifnet.com/index.php/delivery-problems * View The Mifnet LIST ARCHIVE at: https://lists.mifnet.com/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/
