911 flight numbers reused - Confirmed as glitch

United Airlines blamed a technical glitch Wednesday for the brief return of flight numbers 93 and 175, designations retired after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Airline spokesman Rahsaan Johnson said the glitch occurred Monday, when a computer assigned those numbers to existing Continental Airlines flights. But he told CNN the numbers will remain off the books, and that United apologizes for the error.

"It should not have happened, and we should have caught the mistake sooner than we did," Johnson said. United and Continental are the process of merging, and flights will carry both United and Continental numbers, he said.

Source & rest of the article

Glitch? Sick joke? Or perhaps something more insightful?

Whatever the reason the airline says it was glitch and it won't happen again. It shouldn't have happened in the first place as these numbers are pretty well known. I think its odd regardless of what the reason was.

Originally posted by Humint1

United Airlines blamed a technical glitch Wednesday for the brief return of flight numbers 93 and 175, designations retired after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Airline spokesman Rahsaan Johnson said the glitch occurred Monday, when a computer assigned those numbers to existing Continental Airlines flights. But he told CNN the numbers will remain off the books, and that United apologizes for the error.

"It should not have happened, and we should have caught the mistake sooner than we did," Johnson said. United and Continental are the process of merging, and flights will carry both United and Continental numbers, he said.

Source & rest of the article

Glitch? Sick joke? Or perhaps something more insightful?

Whatever the reason the airline says it was glitch and it won't happen again. It shouldn't have happened in the first place as these numbers are pretty well known. I think its odd regardless of what the reason was.

I think it was a glitch, why do you think it was odd?

reply to post by hooper


Because I remember the airline reps saying in the media they removed those flight numbers so they wouldn't be used again. I think its odd that they somehow found their way back into the lineup. Someone should have caught it I would believe.

reply to post by Humint1

Someone should have caught it I would believe

They obviously caught the mistake; that's why we're talking about it.

Second line.

reply to post by Judge_Holden


Which is why my thread stated it was a glitch rather than trying to make somehting out of it more than it is.

Regardless....Someone should have caught it.

reply to post by Humint1
This has probably already been addressed elsewhere, quite some time ago, but has been forever and a day since I've really done any research or whatnot on the 9/11 issue. Regardless, has been in my youtube bookmarks for awhile so thought I'd throw it out:


On 9/11, a new report was playing around with their "flight explorer" that allows them to see planes currently in the air, and as they're playing around with it, US Airlines flight 175 (UAL175, hit the south tower) pops up as currently in the air at 31k feet.

Too much weirdness.

Originally posted by Humint1
reply to post by Judge_Holden

 

Which is why my thread stated it was a glitch rather than trying to make somehting out of it more than it is.

Regardless....Someone should have caught it.

I think that is exactly what they are saying. That before the flights were advertised that someone did catch it. But now that I think of it, its been almost ten years, I wonder how many people, even in the US, really know those numbers off the tops of their heads? Maybe UA 93 because of the movie, but if you asked the man on the street I wonder how many could tell you the number of the flight that hit the Pentagon. Just wondering.

reply to post by hooper


I agree with ya there.
The man on street may know flight 93 as you say. But to those of us that follow this tale we all know. I would also like to believe that the airline employees responsible for assigning flight numbers would know all too well also.

Originally posted by Humint1
reply to post by hooper

 

I agree with ya there.
The man on street may know flight 93 as you say. But to those of us that follow this tale we all know. I would also like to believe that the airline employees responsible for assigning flight numbers would know all too well also.

Yep, ten years is a long time. A 20 year old computer technician at the airlines would have only been 10 when 9/11 happened. I would think that among airline employees it would be well known, but that too will fade with time, particularly with the very high rate of turnover in that industry.

reply to post by Praetorius


Sorry to say this, but I can debunk this one pretty easy. I copied the imagine from the video, and compared the two as you can see here:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/84bf42ed071c.jpg[/atsimg]

I will admit when I first looked at it, it looked like it. After comparing it to the very obvious "5" in the same block of text. My best guess would be a slightly distorted "1" seeing as it is zoomed in and very blurry. Compare it to the other "1" in the image, and they all look a bit different.

This could be as simple as they contracted the development of a software subsystem which issues flight numbers to some firm, or new employee, or intern, and they did not include in the software requirements document to include logic to exclude those numbers.

I have seen similar things before in my work. Developers and software engineers get so caught up with the system's architecture, and test cases, and implementation that they often look over details which might be obvious to users. Yes, it is obvious to us that Flight 93 should not be issued, but when the developers are busy testing their algorithms for speed and memory size, they aren't focused in the slightest amount on the actual numbers. An integer is an integer to them.


However, without any further information, all we can do is turn our wheels and argue speculation.

Originally posted by Humint1
reply to post by hooper

 

Because I remember the airline reps saying in the media they removed those flight numbers so they wouldn't be used again. I think its odd that they somehow found their way back into the lineup. Someone should have caught it I would believe.

Could still be a glitch. If they use microsoft I well believe it. You gotta give a reason why you suspect it wasnt a glitch.

Let me outline it to you.

Points that speak for a glitch: Most programs and hardware cant be rendered bug free. Although there are failsafes built in it can still occour.

The case you made for saying it wasnt a glitch: ......

reply to post by Humint1

Because I remember the airline reps saying in the media they removed those flight numbers so they wouldn't be used again. I think its odd that they somehow found their way back into the lineup.

In the case of United Airlines, they (as did American Airlines) 'retired' those flight numbers. It is traditional for ALL airlines to do the same thing, whenever a flight number is associated with a fatal accident.

In this case, though....Continental Airlines (in the process of being merged with United) never had any flights with numbers '93' or '175' crash and kill people. Hence, the mistake.

More on this....the merger is definitely a mash-up....the 'name' United is being retained.....the paint scheme, though, will be Continental's (much consternation amongst United employees, over that decision). Also, even though the headquarters will 'remain' in Chicago (and the Continental headquarters in Houston downsized) the president of the combined company will come from Continental.

The two company's computer systems, BTW, were not compatible....in terms of the reservations and flight operations segments. MUCH work is being done to merge them, too....to find commonality. NO wonder there are little mistakes like that. You may find instances of Continental's past fatal accidents flight numbers....being used as future United numbers??

Check it out, and see.....

Originally posted by Cassius666

Originally posted by Humint1
reply to post by hooper

 

Because I remember the airline reps saying in the media they removed those flight numbers so they wouldn't be used again. I think its odd that they somehow found their way back into the lineup. Someone should have caught it I would believe.

Could still be a glitch. If they use microsoft I well believe it. You gotta give a reason why you suspect it wasnt a glitch.

Let me outline it to you.

Points that speak for a glitch: Most programs and hardware cant be rendered bug free. Although there are failsafes built in it can still occour.

The case you made for saying it wasnt a glitch: ......

edit on 18-5-2011 by Cassius666 because: (no reason given)

Uh, I think I did say I thought it was a glitch or error and ommission on the part of the company.

Originally posted by Praetorius
reply to post by Humint1

 

This has probably already been addressed elsewhere, quite some time ago, but has been forever and a day since I've really done any research or whatnot on the 9/11 issue. Regardless, has been in my youtube bookmarks for awhile so thought I'd throw it out:

On 9/11, a new report was playing around with their "flight explorer" that allows them to see planes currently in the air, and as they're playing around with it, US Airlines flight 175 (UAL175, hit the south tower) pops up as currently in the air at 31k feet.

Too much weirdness.

That's because of the way Flight Explorer works. When it doesn't / didn't (can't remember if it's still running) recieve updates for a set period of time, it will revert to 'coast mode' where it will project the airplanes position based on the last known heading and speed.

Meh computer glitch..someone stuffed up..nothing to see here...

reply to post by roboe


Thanks roboe, I came across that one day like "huh..." and just pretty much forgot about it.

Saw some other forums last night saying pretty much the same thing so figure either that's possible (in which case the reporting was a LITTLE shoddy) or it might be a different number as an earlier response mentioned - I don't get a 1 out of it, but maybe a 3 or 9. The video quality really isn't that great.

Thanks again, be well.