A broken down to radar in Area control center (ACC)of Milan caused cancellations and delays to about 320 flights In the evening between Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 June. The failure to the systems involved several airports of the North Italy, with heavy inconvenience especially for Milan Malpensa And Linate, Bergamo, Genoa And Turin.
The technical failure had repercussions on most of the northern Italy: this is because the area control center (ACC) of Milan Linate monitors Air traffic of the whole North-West Italian. Consequently, for reasons of safety All landings and departures were blocked for about two hours, then gradually restored in the following hours.
According to what is reported byENAVthe company that deals with managing civil aviation in Italy, the failure was caused by a problem of connectivitywhich prevented the transmission of data collected by radar to the operating rooms. This connectivity is guaranteed by an external supplier of telecommunicationsor Timhowever, he denied having encountered problems for his infrastructure.
In the meantime, theEnac (National Authority for Civil Aviation) has started an investigation to check the causes of the avaria e adopt new measures to avoid similar problems in the future. The results of the investigation should be published within the week.
Radar failure and flights blocked in Northern Italy: ENAV technical reconstruction
According to the technical reconstruction of the event provided by ENAV, the failure involved both the main connection than that reserve of the ENET operating network, which connects all ENAV sites. The failure has negatively influenced the connectivity and “on the influx of radar data to the operating room”: in other words, the problem was not to be traced back to a malfunction of radarwhich detect and record all the movements of the planes, but to the system that transfers The data collected by the radars to the operating room of the control center.
The other members of the network, on the other hand, continued to work: the so -called were also active Notem (Notice to Airmen)i.e. the notices used to communicate Security information and updates relating to airports and air spaces.
At that point, ENAV chose to activate its own emergency system, based on one satellite connection and therefore managed by a provider other than TIM.
Thanks to this procedure, ENAV was able to manage the Flights already present in aerial space iTiliano at the time of the failure: this emergency system, however, does not allow you to manage in continuous Air traffic. That’s why, to guarantee the maximum safety standards, from 20:20 until 22:20 on Saturday 28 June the «zero installment», That is, the temporary interruption of all the new decolls and entrances to the airspace of the whole Italian north-west.
Starting from 10:20 pm the air traffic is gradually restored Up to 50%, with the complete restart of flights starting at 23:45. The failure, however, caused delays and cancellations to about 320 flights, with heavy inconvenience also for airports of Tuscany And Venetoon which most of the direct flights to the North-West have been diverted.
How the ACC areas work that monitor flights and where they are in Italy
In general, each area control center (ACC) monitor All flights that they pass within their area of competence. In other words, they not only manage the departure and arrival planes, but also all those of ride. That’s why, after the breakdown, all the flights above the North-West area were also transit. diverted.
In Italy the airspace is divided into 4 Area control centers (ACC)all managed by ENAV: in addition to that of Milan Linate, responsible for all air traffic in the North-West, there are those of Padua (for the North-East), a Rome-Ciampino (South-west) ea BRINDISI-CASALE (South-East).
