Kill all apps, reboot, restart app. Problem solved for the time being. I wonder how these iPads are "used" in between flights. Just sayin'
It was a corrupted data file that a required app we need would crash on. The updates are downloaded when we check in. Rebooting would do nothing to correct the data file.
As Photodenk says, they should have had backup hard copy flight documents at the airport. Seems like an obvious oversight.
When these things were first being deployed, they kept a backup paper copy in each airplane. The thing is that it's a pain to deal with paper charts. A full worldwide set is 34,000 pages, though airlines only carry the ones they fly to. Every time you update, you get a pile of 25 to maybe 100 pages. These pages are invalid until a specific date. The night before, you go through and follow a list which tells you exactly which pages to add, which to remove, and which to replace. These pages have to be exactly in the right order, or else you can't find it while flying, and if you fail to update a page, very bad things can happen. You can't just have backup hard copies lying around, they all have to be updated. Oh and it happens every 14 days.
?On top of that, pilots have to carry basically the instruction manual for the plane which has a similar, less frequent, update procedure. Those big square rolling flight kits pilots used to carry? They're packed full of books.
The 30th is the start of the next worldwide cycle. It was obviously a misupdate.
When these things were first being deployed, they kept a backup paper copy in each airplane. The thing is that it's a pain to deal with paper charts. A full worldwide set is 34,000 pages, though airlines only carry the ones they fly to. Every time you update, you get a pile of 25 to maybe 100 pages. These pages are invalid until a specific date. The night before, you go through and follow a list which tells you exactly which pages to add, which to remove, and which to replace. These pages have to be exactly in the right order, or else you can't find it while flying, and if you fail to update a page, very bad things can happen. <span style="line-height:1.4em;">You can't just have backup hard copies lying around, they all have to be updated. Oh and it happens every 14 days.</span>
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">?On top of that, pilots have to carry basically the instruction manual for the plane which has a similar, less frequent, update procedure. Those big square rolling flight kits pilots used to carry? They're packed full </span>
of books<span style="line-height:1.4em;">.</span>
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">The 30th is the start of the next worldwide cycle. It was obviously a misupdate.</span>
The whole reason for EFBs is to get rid of paper - completely. To carry charts or maintain a subscription completely defeats the purpose of going electronic.
It wasn't an oversight. Paper is gone.
This is one of the most ridiculous comments I've ever seen. It's not an all or nothing world. "The whole reason for EFB's is to get rid of paper - COMPLETELY". LOL!!! So - if even one page of paper remains, the project is a failure? A complete failure? LMAO!!! Even though it still saved millions of dollars and millions of printed pages? Get real and get realistic. I understand that having backup copies available at the airport was not a viable solution because a) one backup copy would mean 1 flight could leave - and there would still be dozens of flights delayed and no more backup copies to hand out. But your use of the word "COMPLETELY" in your statement is ridiculous.
The real question and the real failure here is in the IT departments failure to adequately test a software update and do a few test (pilot) deployments. This is a well known change management practice and several people in the organization definitely deserve to be fired over such a stupid and risky shortcut. Whatever vendor is responsible for their MDM solution should also be kicked out if they did not insist that trial deployments be performed before sending the update out to their entire fleet. The MDM software should also have detected the corruption in the files and not allowed the deployment to occur. This would never have happened if they had used Radia for their MDM solution. I have several friends that work for companies using Radia and I've heard multiple stories about how it saved their asses on multiple occasions. There should have also been a rollback plan in place! What? The update is corrupt? Damn. Post a10-minute delay and we'll roll back the software update to yesterday's version! Seriously - who is getting fired for this??? Certainly the IT director - but who else???
The whole reason for EFBs is to get rid of paper - completely. To carry charts or maintain a subscription completely defeats the purpose of going electronic.
It wasn't an oversight. Paper is gone.
And because paper is gone, the planes were still there.
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">The 30th is the start of the next worldwide cycle. It was obviously a misupdate.</span>
Well, hopefully they have someone test these data files the next time they get ready to send it out to everyone. That's gonna cost AA money, I hope they don't blame Apple internally or publicly for a messed up file they're sending to pilots. Really though, this seems like something they could have easily caught before sending. I doubt it will ever happen again.
This is one of the most ridiculous comments I've ever seen. It's not an all or nothing world. "The whole reason for EFB's is to get rid of paper - COMPLETELY". LOL!!! So - if even one page of paper remains, the project is a failure? A complete failure? LMAO!!! Even though it still saved millions of dollars and millions of printed pages? Get real and get realistic. I understand that having backup copies available at the airport was not a viable solution because a) one backup copy would mean 1 flight could leave - and there would still be dozens of flights delayed and no more backup copies to hand out. But your use of the word "COMPLETELY" in your statement is ridiculous.
The real question and the real failure here is in the IT departments failure to adequately test a software update and do a few test (pilot) deployments. This is a well known change management practice and several people in the organization definitely deserve to be fired over such a stupid and risky shortcut. Whatever vendor is responsible for their MDM solution should also be kicked out if they did not insist that trial deployments be performed before sending the update out to their entire fleet. The MDM software should also have detected the corruption in the files and not allowed the deployment to occur. This would never have happened if they had used Radia for their MDM solution. I have several friends that work for companies using Radia and I've heard multiple stories about how it saved their asses on multiple occasions. There should have also been a rollback plan in place! What? The update is corrupt? Damn. Post a10-minute delay and we'll roll back the software update to yesterday's version! Seriously - who is getting fired for this??? Certainly the IT director - but who else???
Wow, that's a cracking rant!
There's also established change management principles that proven and routine CI updates do not require the same rigor in the deployment process. It's a risk based assessment. If it were part of a regular
update it simply would have been scheduled and pushed. Although, arguably, the risk profile here probably warrants different treatment.
Blame it on the iPad? Likely it was a American Airline software bug, and that software might have been installed on some iPads, or they made changes to their backend and didn't update software on their iPads to handle it.
Love the contradiction in the title and subhead. Talk about deception and proof that you guys are so far from legitimate that it's laughable...unless Mickey is suffering from split personality disorder and the editor's of this rag could care less about integrity?
Headline: Apple iPad software issue grounds 'several dozen' American Airlines flights
subhead: At least one American Airlines flight was grounded before takeoff on Tuesday due to a software bug that disabled......
Since when is "several dozen" the same as "At least one"?
Let me try to remember back to my elementary school days. At least one = 1 A dozen = 12, so several dozen could be upwards of 48.
Yup, I could see where you messed up...real close. What a joke you people are.
Blame it on the iPad? Likely it was a American Airline software bug, and that software might have been installed on some iPads, or they made changes to their backend and didn't update software on their iPads to handle it.
Rule: it's always Apple's fault. This wouldn't have happened with the Surface Pro running Windows 8. The pilots could just enter the admin password and edit the corrupt registry keys themselves. They should also update their virus definitions and update Flash, Acrobat Reader and Silverlight. Just be sure to uncheck the "special offers" box or you'll change your default home page or search engine.
Agreed -- Sounds like American made a statement wrongfully making it sound like it was a device issue also. I thought there was a certain amount of backup manuals the pilots had to carry anyway. They at least should have paperwork at the gate they could put on the plane. The iPad doesn't run the plane and neither does the app. Shouldn't take more than 2 hours to come up with a manual fix. Fact that American seems to think it is valid to expect a computer to always be working without any backup available at the airport is pretty naive.
The whole purpose of the iPad is to eliminate the need to carry all those manuals, maps, etc.
This is one of the most ridiculous comments I've ever seen. It's not an all or nothing world. "The whole reason for EFB's is to get rid of paper - COMPLETELY". LOL!!! So - if even one page of paper remains, the project is a failure? A complete failure? LMAO!!! Even though it still saved millions of dollars and millions of printed pages? Get real and get realistic. I understand that having backup copies available at the airport was not a viable solution because a) one backup copy would mean 1 flight could leave - and there would still be dozens of flights delayed and no more backup copies to hand out. But your use of the word "COMPLETELY" in your statement is ridiculous.
What's ridiculous is the statement above. It reflects a complete lack of understanding of the issues!!!
Comments
It was a corrupted data file that a required app we need would crash on. The updates are downloaded when we check in. Rebooting would do nothing to correct the data file.
As Photodenk says, they should have had backup hard copy flight documents at the airport. Seems like an obvious oversight.
When these things were first being deployed, they kept a backup paper copy in each airplane. The thing is that it's a pain to deal with paper charts. A full worldwide set is 34,000 pages, though airlines only carry the ones they fly to. Every time you update, you get a pile of 25 to maybe 100 pages. These pages are invalid until a specific date. The night before, you go through and follow a list which tells you exactly which pages to add, which to remove, and which to replace. These pages have to be exactly in the right order, or else you can't find it while flying, and if you fail to update a page, very bad things can happen. You can't just have backup hard copies lying around, they all have to be updated. Oh and it happens every 14 days.
?On top of that, pilots have to carry basically the instruction manual for the plane which has a similar, less frequent, update procedure. Those big square rolling flight kits pilots used to carry? They're packed full of books.
The 30th is the start of the next worldwide cycle. It was obviously a misupdate.
This is one of the most ridiculous comments I've ever seen. It's not an all or nothing world. "The whole reason for EFB's is to get rid of paper - COMPLETELY". LOL!!! So - if even one page of paper remains, the project is a failure? A complete failure? LMAO!!! Even though it still saved millions of dollars and millions of printed pages? Get real and get realistic. I understand that having backup copies available at the airport was not a viable solution because a) one backup copy would mean 1 flight could leave - and there would still be dozens of flights delayed and no more backup copies to hand out. But your use of the word "COMPLETELY" in your statement is ridiculous.
The real question and the real failure here is in the IT departments failure to adequately test a software update and do a few test (pilot) deployments. This is a well known change management practice and several people in the organization definitely deserve to be fired over such a stupid and risky shortcut. Whatever vendor is responsible for their MDM solution should also be kicked out if they did not insist that trial deployments be performed before sending the update out to their entire fleet. The MDM software should also have detected the corruption in the files and not allowed the deployment to occur. This would never have happened if they had used Radia for their MDM solution. I have several friends that work for companies using Radia and I've heard multiple stories about how it saved their asses on multiple occasions. There should have also been a rollback plan in place! What? The update is corrupt? Damn. Post a10-minute delay and we'll roll back the software update to yesterday's version! Seriously - who is getting fired for this??? Certainly the IT director - but who else???
The whole reason for EFBs is to get rid of paper - completely. To carry charts or maintain a subscription completely defeats the purpose of going electronic.
It wasn't an oversight. Paper is gone.
And because paper is gone, the planes were still there.
I think the pilot was looking for "ctl-alt-del"
Agree with Tenly on the MDM.
Well, hopefully they have someone test these data files the next time they get ready to send it out to everyone. That's gonna cost AA money, I hope they don't blame Apple internally or publicly for a messed up file they're sending to pilots. Really though, this seems like something they could have easily caught before sending. I doubt it will ever happen again.
There's also established change management principles that proven and routine CI updates do not require the same rigor in the deployment process. It's a risk based assessment. If it were part of a regular
update it simply would have been scheduled and pushed. Although, arguably, the risk profile here probably warrants different treatment.
Headline:
Apple iPad software issue grounds 'several dozen' American Airlines flights
subhead:
At least one American Airlines flight was grounded before takeoff on Tuesday due to a software bug that disabled......
Since when is "several dozen" the same as "At least one"?
Let me try to remember back to my elementary school days.
At least one = 1
A dozen = 12, so several dozen could be upwards of 48.
Yup, I could see where you messed up...real close. What a joke you people are.
Love how the headline makes it sound like an iPad or iOS flaw but then in the article it's blamed on a third party app
Yeah, a total click-bait headline. It couldn't have read "iPad App Issue ..."? That would have been too accurate?
Rule: it's always Apple's fault. This wouldn't have happened with the Surface Pro running Windows 8. The pilots could just enter the admin password and edit the corrupt registry keys themselves. They should also update their virus definitions and update Flash, Acrobat Reader and Silverlight. Just be sure to uncheck the "special offers" box or you'll change your default home page or search engine.
Dittos!!!
Love how the headline makes it sound like an iPad or iOS flaw but then in the article it's blamed on a third party app
Dittos!!
Agreed -- Sounds like American made a statement wrongfully making it sound like it was a device issue also. I thought there was a certain amount of backup manuals the pilots had to carry anyway. They at least should have paperwork at the gate they could put on the plane. The iPad doesn't run the plane and neither does the app. Shouldn't take more than 2 hours to come up with a manual fix. Fact that American seems to think it is valid to expect a computer to always be working without any backup available at the airport is pretty naive.
The whole purpose of the iPad is to eliminate the need to carry all those manuals, maps, etc.
This is one of the most ridiculous comments I've ever seen. It's not an all or nothing world. "The whole reason for EFB's is to get rid of paper - COMPLETELY". LOL!!! So - if even one page of paper remains, the project is a failure? A complete failure? LMAO!!! Even though it still saved millions of dollars and millions of printed pages? Get real and get realistic. I understand that having backup copies available at the airport was not a viable solution because a) one backup copy would mean 1 flight could leave - and there would still be dozens of flights delayed and no more backup copies to hand out. But your use of the word "COMPLETELY" in your statement is ridiculous.
What's ridiculous is the statement above. It reflects a complete lack of understanding of the issues!!!