Shannon Radar down

Oscar Bravo

Just after 7pm Shannon's main radar went tech. As a result no movements into and out of Shannon and knock until at least 10pm. Aer Lingus from Knock to Gatwick was on the runway and had to return to stand. Looking at Flight radar its like Xmas day currently

jasT1981

Looks like no flights over all of ROI right now.

LIVE: The Shannon FIR region EISN has suffered a complete radar data failure, with no flights allowed over Southern Ireland ('zero rate'). EuroControl states an up-time of 2200UTC (subject to change). Listen

Dublin is in the republic as well.

kub

Oscar Bravo wrote: »

Just after 7pm Shannon's main radar went tech. As a result no movements into and out of Shannon and knock until at least 10pm. Aer Lingus from Knock to Gatwick was on the runway and had to return to stand. Looking at Flight radar its like Xmas day currently

Is this affecting Cork as well? Just inbound and outbound from there is controlled by Shannon also.

kub

Deleted User wrote: »

Dublin is in the republic as well.

On the FR App planes can be seen over Dublin and a little south of it over The Irish Sea. Nothing to the Wast of Dublin Airport.

Oscar Bravo

kub wrote: »

Is this affecting Cork as well? Just inbound and outbound from there is controlled by Shannon also.

Yeah, EI724 to LHR cancelled.

notharrypotter

Oscar Bravo wrote: »

Just after 7pm Shannon's main radar went tech. As a result no movements into and out of Shannon and knock until at least 10pm. Aer Lingus from Knock to Gatwick was on the runway and had to return to stand. Looking at Flight radar its like Xmas day currently

SHANNON FIR covers Donegal, Sligo, Knock, Shannon, Kerry, Cork and Waterford.
So no arrivals/departures from those airport's untill the system is restored.
A clear the skies protocol operates in the Shannon FIR at present.

Dublin CTA is a separate entity per say.

igCorcaigh

https://twitter.com/CorkAirport/status/1047214132859162625?s=19

EchoIndia

Must say I'm surprised that procedural (i.e non-radar) control procedures have not been adopted. Dublin used to do this in the old days when the primary radar sat down. Modern aircraft are well able to navigate accurately without ATC radar having to monitor them.

kub

I just got an alert from my RTE App, it is saying all flights to Shannon and Cork are suspended.

notharrypotter

EchoIndia wrote: »

Must say I'm surprised that procedural (i.e non-radar) control procedures have not been adopted. Dublin used to do this in the old days when the primary radar sat down. Modern aircraft are well able to navigate accurately without ATC radar having to monitor them.

There are no area rated procedural ATCO's in the IAA.

Radar is used to keep aircraft apart not just monitor flight path adhearance.

EchoIndia

I know that, but as you will know there are large areas of the Earth where separation is achieved without radar. I accept that people here are not trained/ rated for such a rare eventuality.

Topgear on Dave

This will be an expensive evening.

How can the whole radar go down? Is there no redundancy in the system?

notharrypotter

EchoIndia wrote: »

I know that, but as you will know there are large areas of the Earth where separation is achieved without radar. I accept that people here are not trained/ rated for such a rare eventuality.

They do not have a license to provide a procedural area service. To attempt to do so is illegal.

gctest50

Topgear on Dave wrote: »

This will be an expensive evening.

How can the whole radar go down? Is there no redundancy in the system?

Stuff just fails sometimes

Oscar Bravo

Shannon starting departures now

nim1bdeh38l2cw

Normal service has resumed

kub

Oscar Bravo wrote: »

Shannon starting departures now

FR 3326 from Krakow to Shannon timed it perfectly, 5 mins out from SNN now.

mikel97

4th world atc

Locker10a

I was on the EI912 we were at the threshold lined up to go. Cancelled....

Macdarack

gctest50 wrote: »

Stuff just fails sometimes

Rotation bearing on ballycasey radar?

ED E

Macdarack wrote: »

Rotation bearing on ballycasey radar?

That picture is from 2011.

vicwatson

kub wrote: »

FR 3326 from Krakow to Shannon timed it perfectly, 5 mins out from SNN now.

Otherwise a few hours bus ride

Macdarack

ED E wrote: »

That picture is from 2011.

Obviously, but was it from ballycasey radar?

Tow

Topgear on Dave wrote: »

This will be an expensive evening.

How can the whole radar go down? Is there no redundancy in the system?

A few years ago the Dublin radar went down several times. It was eventually traced to a faulty network card on a PC.

plodder

Topgear on Dave wrote: »

This will be an expensive evening.

How can the whole radar go down? Is there no redundancy in the system?

Good question. The Dublin radar has (at least) two complete units as far as I know. There could still be single points of failure possible but you would expect those components to be replaceable quickly. It was interesting how few flights were affected though. Maybe that is the reason.

Actually it seems a backup system exists and is still in use. So does that mean the shutdown was caused by a delay in switching over. ?

notharrypotter

plodder wrote: »

Good question. The Dublin radar has (at least) two complete units as far as I know. There could still be single points of failure possible but you would expect those components to be replaceable quickly. It was interesting how few flights were affected though. Maybe that is the reason.

Actually it seems a backup system exists and is still in use. So does that mean the shutdown was caused by a delay in switching over. ?

First thing is to safely manage current traffic while dealing with the failure.
This requires halting departures so you are not adding more aircraft while dealing with all all aircraft currently in the air.

Then assess what is the root cause (s).

There is no point switching over if you have no idea what caused the problem in the first place.
If the main system cannot be relied on then the backup must be brought on-line.

This will be done in a manged fashion.
Safety first.

ED E

Macdarack wrote: »

Obviously, but was it from ballycasey radar?

Nope, South Africa. And its from a radio telescope not a radar.

RadioRetro

It was quite freaky last night, nothing over the majority of the island.

cml387

It's unlikely to be an actual radar head failure. More likely a problem in the software that combines the plots into a single screen.

faoiarvok

cml387 wrote: »

It's unlikely to be an actual radar head failure. More likely a problem in the software that combines the plots into a single screen.

Yes, Eurocontrol Network Operations Portal reported it as a Flight Data Processing System failure