A skydiver can pack their own main parachute. The reserve is a different story.
Under federal regulations, a reserve parachute used in the U.S. must be packed by an FAA-certified parachute rigger, with limited exceptions. It also has to be inspected and repacked on a regular schedule, whether it has been used or not. The distinction makes sense when you consider the job description: The reserve exists for the precise moment when something that was supposed to work doesn’t.
That’s the tricky thing about backups. Having one can make you feel prepared. But when the primary system fails, you need more than a feeling to fall back on.
That principle extends well beyond parachutes and people willingly jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft. Last week, the FAA discovered what happens when the backup has problems of its own.
When plan b needs a plan c
On Monday, September 21, technical problems at a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic control facility in Philadelphia caused major disruptions across some of the country’s busiest airspace.
The facility’s primary communications line failed. Normally, traffic would shift to a backup fiber-optic connection, but the backup line had been accidentally severed during construction work.
With both connections unavailable, air traffic controllers lost radar and communications capabilities for several hours. The resulting disruption rippled across the Northeast, affecting Philadelphia International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, LaGuardia Airport, and John F. Kennedy International Airport. Newark was hit particularly hard, with commercial air traffic halted from roughly 9:40 am until 5:20 pm. More than 200 flights were canceled in Philadelphia, while hundreds more were canceled elsewhere.
Repairs were completed Monday evening, and New York-area airports resumed operations. But cancellations and delays continued into Tuesday as airlines worked through the backlog.
The more interesting story, however, isn’t how quickly flights returned to the skies. It’s what happened when two layers of protection became unavailable at the same time.
Two systems, one point of failure
At its simplest, redundancy means having something else ready to take over when a critical system fails.
The harder question is whether that backup will still be available when you need it.
An organization might have backups for its internet connection, emergency communication channel, power source, data center, supplier, or workplace. That second option can create a comforting sense of security. But if the primary and backup share an underlying dependency, a single incident can potentially affect both.
Two internet connections, for example, might ultimately rely on fiber running through the same physical corridor. Two critical applications could depend on the same cloud provider. A backup generator won’t provide much reassurance if it hasn’t been tested under the load it would actually need to carry.
That’s where Monday’s FAA outage becomes relevant far beyond aviation and travel.
The question for organizations isn’t “Do we have a backup?”
It’s “What could take out both?”
Why you should care: Most business continuity plans account for individual failures. The harder task is finding hidden connections between systems that can turn several safeguards into a single point of failure.
Start by mapping the dependencies behind your most critical operations. Look at what your primary and backup systems share, including power, telecommunications infrastructure, software providers, authentication services, physical locations, and even personnel.
Communication deserves particular attention. During an emergency, employees don’t care how many backup systems appear on a continuity diagram. They need timely, accurate information and a reliable way to respond.
Don’t just build redundancy. Test whether it actually works when you need it. |
.jpg)
