Terminal Compromise - Winn Schwartau (fiction book recommendations TXT) 📗
- Author: Winn Schwartau
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day were announced for most flights. Police were needed to quell
angry crowds who were stuck thousands of miles from home and were
going to miss critical business liaisons. There is nothing we
can do, every airline explained to no avail.
Slowly, the planes were brought down, pilots relying on VFR since
they couldn’t count on any help from the ground. At airports
where weather prohibited VFR landings, and the planes had enough
fuel, they were redirected to nearby airports. Nearly a dozen
emergency landings in a two hours period set new records that the
FAA preferred didn’t exist. A field day for the media, and a
certain decrease in future passenger activity until the shock
wore off.
The National Transportation Safety Board had representatives
monitoring the situation within an hour of the first reports from
Dallas, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Tampa. When all 737’s were
accounted for, the individual airports and the FAA lifted flight
restrictions and left it to the airlines to straighten out the
scheduling mess. One hundred thousand stranded passengers and
almost 30% of the domestic civilian air fleet was grounded.
It was a good thing their reservation computers hadn’t gone down.
Damn good thing.
*DISASTER IN AIR CREATES PANIC ON GROUND
by Scott Mason
“A national tragedy was avoided today by the quick and brave
actions of hundreds of air traffic controllers and pilots working
in harmony,” a spokesperson for The Department of Transportation
said, commenting on yesterday’s failure of the computerized
transponder systems in Boeing 737 airplanes.
“In the interest of safety for all concerned, 737’s will not be
permitted to fly commercially until a full investigation has
taken place.” the spokesperson continued. “That process should
be complete within 30 days.”
In all, 114 people were sent to hospitals, 29 in serious condi-
tion, as a result of injuries sustained while pilots performed
dangerous gut wrenching maneuvers to avoid mid-air collisions.
Neither Boeing nor the Transportation Safety Board would comment
on how computer errors could suddenly affect so many airplanes at
once, but some computer experts have pointed out the possibility
of sabotage. According to Harold Greenwood, an aeronautic elec-
tronics specialist with Air Systems Design in Alpharetta, Geor-
gia, “there is a real and definite possibility that there has
been a specific attack on the airline computers. Probably by
hackers. Either that or the most devastating computer program-
ming error in history.”
Government officials discounted Greenwood’s theories and said
there is no place for wild speculation that could create panic in
the minds of the public. None the less, flight cancellations
busied the phones at most airlines and travel agencies, while the
gargantuan task of rescheduling thousands of flights with 30%
less planes began. Airline officials who didn’t want to be
quoted estimated that it would take at least a week to bring the
system back together,
Airline fares will increase next Monday by at least 10% and as
much as 40% on some routes that will not be restored fully.
The tone of the press conference held at the DoT was one of both
bitterness and shock as was that of sampled public opinion.
“I think I’ll take the train.”
“Computers? They always blame the computers. Who’s really at
fault?”
“They’re just as bad as the oil companies. Something goes a
little wrong and they jack up the prices.”
The National Transportation Safety Board said it would also
institute a series of preventative maintenance steps on other
airplanes’ computer systems to insure that such a global failure
is never repeated.
Major domestic airlines announced they would try to lease addi-
tional planes from other countries, but could not guarantee prior
service performance for 3 to 6 months. Preliminary estimates
place the cost of this debacle at between $800 Million and $2
Billion if the entire 737 fleet is grounded for only 2 weeks.
The Stock Market reacted poorly to the news, and transportation
stocks dove an average of 27% in heavy trading.
The White House issued a brief statement congratulating the
airline industry for its handling of the situation and wished its
best to all inconvenienced and injured travelers.
Class action suits will be filed next week against the airlines
and Boeing as a result of the computer malfunction. This is Scott
Mason, riding the train.
*“Doug,” pleaded 39 year old veteran reporter Scott Mason. “Not
another computer virus story . . .” Scott childishly shrugged
his shoulders in mock defeat.
“Stop your whining,” Doug ordered in fun. “You are the special-
ist,” he chided.
When the story first came across the wire, Scott was the logical
choice. In only seven years as a reporter Scott Mason had de-
veloped quite a reputation for himself, and for the New York City
Times. Doug had had to eat his words from years earlier more
times than he cared to remember, but Scott’s head had not swelled
to the size of his fan club, which was the bane of so many suc-
cessful writers. He knew he was good, just like he had told Doug
“There is nothing sexy about viruses anymore,” said Scott trying
to politely ignore his boss to the point he would just leave.
“Christ Almighty,” the chubby balding sixtyish editor exploded.
Doug’s periodic exclamatory outbursts at Scott’s nonchalance on
critical issues were legendary. “The man who puts Cold Fusion on
the front page of every paper in the country doesn’t think a
virus is sexy enough for the public. Good night!”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” Scott had to defend this one. “I
finally got someone to go on the record about the solar payoff
scandals between Oil and Congress . . .”
“Then the virus story will give you a little break,” kidded Doug.
“You’ve been working too hard.”
“Damn it, Doug,” Scott defied. “Viruses are a dime a dozen and
worse, there’s no one behind it, there’s nobody there. There’s
no story . . .”
“Then find one. That’s what we pay you for.” Doug loudly mut-
tered a few choice words that his paper wouldn’t be caught dead
printing. “Besides, you’re the only one left.” As he left he
patted Scott on the back saying, “thanks. Really.”
“God, I hate this job.”
Scott Mason loved his job, after all it was his invention seven
years ago when he first pitched it to Doug. Scott’s original
idea had worked. Scott Mason alone, under the banner of the New
York City Times, virtually pioneered Scientific Journalism as a
media form in its own right.
Scott Mason was still its most vocal proponent, just as he was
when he connived his way into a job with the Times, and without
any journalistic experience. It was a childhood fantasy.
Doug remembered the day clearly. “That’s a new one on me,” Doug
had said with amusement when the mildly arrogant but very likable
Mason had gotten cornered him, somehow bypassing personnel.
Points for aggressiveness, points for creativity and points for
brass balls. “What is Scientific Journalism?”
“Scientific Journalism is stripping away all of the long techni-
cal terms that science hides behind, and bringing the facts to
the people at home.”
“We have a quite adequate Science Section, a computer
column . . .and we pick up the big stories.” Doug had tried to
be polite.
“That’s not what I mean,” Scott explained. “Everybody and his
dead brother can write about the machines and the computers and
the software. I’m talking about finding the people, the meaning,
the impact behind the technology.”
“No one would be interested,” objected Doug.
Doug was wrong.
Scott Mason immediately acclimated to the modus operandi of the
news business and actually locked onto the collapse of Kaypro
Computers and the odd founding family who rode serendipity until
competence was required for survival. The antics of the Kay
family earned Mason a respectable following in his articles and
contributions as well as several libel and slander suits from the
Kays. Trouble was, it’s not against the law to print the truth
or a third party speculations, as long as they’re not malicious.
Scott instinctively knew how to ride the fine edge between false
accusations and impersonal objectivity.
Cold Fusion, the brief prayer for immediate, cheap energy inde-
pendence made headlines, but Scott Mason dug deep and found that
some of the advocates of Cold Fusion had vested interests in
palladium and iridium mining concerns. He also discovered how
the experiments had been staged well enough to fool most experts.
Scott had located one expert who wasn’t fooled and could prove
it. Scott Mason rode the crest of the Cold Fusion story for
months before it became old news and the Hubble Telescope fiasco
took its place.
The fiasco of the Hubble Telescope was nothing new to Scott
Mason’s readers. He had published months before its launch that
the mirrors were defective, but the government didn’t heed the
whistle blower’s advice. The optical measurement computers which
grind the mirrors of the telescope had a software program that
was never tested before being used on the Hubble.
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