Major Clarifications (Score 1)

The air traffic CONTROL system was NOT affected. The controllers could watch the planes "near miss" on their radar scopes. The *radio* / communications system was hosed; controllers could not contact the planes by voice.

2^32.... reboots, schmeboots.... the system was down for *5 HOURS*. Not even a crapped-all-over-itself Windoze 95 box takes that long to come back up and load its app. This is obviously a SERIOUSLY FLAWED system that could not restore itself, and all backups failed (for a time) too.

"Delta, go around..." -- (message to Flight 191 as it was crashing in a thunderstorm, Dallas, 1989)