Narrative:

I am a flight service specialist. I am reporting an ongoing and routinely occurring safety concern. About 2-3 times/month; the company takes down its primary briefing system; for various reasons - software updates/patches; security patches; information updates; etc. The entire system is taken down all at once; nationwide. It is taken down at lower-traffic times of the day; however traffic is often still busy; particularly in the western time zones and during summer. When the system is taken down; specialists have no choice but to use our official 'back up' system; aeronautical system information replacement (aisr). This concept of deeming aisr as an official back-up; thereby allowing my company to justify taking down its primary system; has several very serious safety ramifications that; to date; have been nearly completely ignored by my company; despite an enormous amount of very concerned feedback by specialists; as a whole; in nearly all forms; from vocal complaints to one-on-one talks with management to official problem reports filed with the company. The following are some examples of the most serious safely concerns. 1)not all notams are provided by aisr when a pilot brief request is submitted. Notams are of utmost importance to pilot safety. Aisr does reliably report all notams on any given brief. The com program management is aware of this problem; and their 'workaround' is alarming: to quote a directive to the entire facility; 'route notams are accessible through naimes (an FAA website). It will provide all enroute notams including tfrs....aisr program will not provide notams.' (proof of this statement is available.) the problem lies in the disclaimer carried on naimes stating the following: 'this site is informational in nature; and is designed for pilot use. Current notams are available from flight service stations at 1-800-WX-brief. Notices; restrictions; and advisories may change at any time and without notice. Do not attempt any operation in the national airspace system without first obtaining and understanding a thorough pre-flight briefing. 'It is a contradiction in logic to instruct pilots that they should ultimately rely only on the final information available from flight service when flight service is being forced to use the very same source of data that pilots are told to double check. 2) tfr data is not given on pilot weather briefs from aisr. This is problematic for the same reasons as above. Tfrs are some one of the most safety-critical aviation advisories available. The fact that FSS specialists are routinely denied access to an up-to-date; reliable; and 'final word' source of current tfrs and are forced to brief pilots; who by calling our company have placed their safety and trust in the data that will be given to them; with nothing more reliable than web pages has obvious safety ramifications. The fact that restricted area NOTAMS are now issued as ARTCC notams; rather than tied to a NAVAID compounds this safety issue; as aisr more often than not omits ARTCC notams from its briefs as well. 3) aisr consistently does not provide the details of many weather advisories in a weather brief; particularly convective sigmets. The convective SIGMET is undeniably one of the most deadly and critical weather advisories. On multiple occasions; aisr has not provided the advisory even when the route in question penetrated right through the middle. On one occasion; before I knew of this shortcoming in aisr (company management has not educated specialists of this issue); I nearly omitted an existing convective SIGMET during a weather brief while using aisr. Thankfully; I happened to see an aviation weather.gov depiction of it. Had I not happened to glance at that page; the pilot would not have been briefed on it due to the fact that it was not provided to me by the 'official backup system' and the results could have been disastrous. Hence - the only sources for such weather advisories are mere internet sites; and we're officially directed to brief from them when the main system is down. However; flight service's safety-critical function requires absolute reliability and currency -- something internet sites simply can't provide (most of them will come with a disclaimer saying they are not for use for flight planning and to call flight service; despite the fact that they are exactly what flight service is relying on for flight planning...) often times these sites will have delays that can last for as long as 5 to 10 minutes. This may not seem like much; but it's ample time for a pilot to get a brief and depart without the briefer ever having a source to receive the advisory; as the 'official backup' does not provide it as it needs to. The fact that briefer s now must routinely brief unfamiliar areas with no training/knowledge of local weather patterns; airspace; geography; or current weather trends compounds these issues. Coupling this lack of knowledge with unreliable/incomplete data is a recipe that guarantees; in time; a tragedy for an unknowing pilot and passengers who placed their trust in our company.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: PRC FSS specialist expressed concern regarding a number facility operational practices that involve system shutdowns with only questionable backup systems available during the outages.

Narrative: I am a Flight Service specialist. I am reporting an ongoing and routinely occurring safety concern. About 2-3 times/month; the company takes down its primary briefing system; for various reasons - software updates/patches; security patches; information updates; etc. The entire system is taken down all at once; nationwide. It is taken down at lower-traffic times of the day; however traffic is often still busy; particularly in the Western time zones and during summer. When the system is taken down; specialists have no choice but to use our official 'back up' system; Aeronautical System Information Replacement (AISR). This concept of deeming AISR as an official back-up; thereby allowing my company to justify taking down its primary system; has several very serious safety ramifications that; to date; have been nearly completely ignored by my company; despite an enormous amount of very concerned feedback by specialists; as a whole; in nearly all forms; from vocal complaints to one-on-one talks with management to official problem reports filed with the company. The following are some examples of the most serious safely concerns. 1)Not all NOTAMs are provided by AISR when a pilot brief request is submitted. NOTAMs are of utmost importance to pilot safety. AISR does reliably report all NOTAMs on any given brief. The Com Program Management is aware of this problem; and their 'workaround' is alarming: to quote a directive to the entire facility; 'Route NOTAMs are accessible through NAIMES (an FAA website). It will provide all enroute NOTAMs including TFRs....AISR program will not provide NOTAMs.' (Proof of this statement is available.) The problem lies in the disclaimer carried on NAIMES stating the following: 'This site is informational in nature; and is designed for Pilot use. Current NOTAMs are available from Flight Service Stations at 1-800-WX-BRIEF. Notices; restrictions; and advisories may change at any time and without notice. Do not attempt any operation in the National Airspace System without first obtaining and understanding a thorough pre-flight briefing. 'It is a contradiction in logic to instruct pilots that they should ultimately rely only on the final information available from Flight Service when Flight Service is being forced to use the very same source of data that pilots are told to double check. 2) TFR data is not given on pilot weather briefs from AISR. This is problematic for the same reasons as above. TFRs are some one of the most safety-critical aviation advisories available. The fact that FSS specialists are routinely denied access to an up-to-date; reliable; and 'final word' source of current TFRs and are forced to brief pilots; who by calling our company have placed their safety and trust in the data that will be given to them; with nothing more reliable than web pages has obvious safety ramifications. The fact that Restricted Area NOTAMS are now issued as ARTCC NOTAMs; rather than tied to a NAVAID compounds this safety issue; as AISR more often than not omits ARTCC NOTAMs from its briefs as well. 3) AISR consistently does not provide the details of many weather advisories in a weather brief; particularly Convective SIGMETs. The Convective SIGMET is undeniably one of the most deadly and critical weather advisories. On MULTIPLE occasions; AISR has not provided the advisory even when the route in question penetrated right through the middle. On one occasion; before I knew of this shortcoming in AISR (Company Management has not educated specialists of this issue); I nearly omitted an existing Convective SIGMET during a weather brief while using AISR. Thankfully; I happened to see an Aviation weather.gov depiction of it. Had I not happened to glance at that page; the pilot would not have been briefed on it due to the fact that it was not provided to me by the 'official backup system' and the results could have been disastrous. Hence - the ONLY sources for such weather advisories are mere Internet sites; and we're officially directed to brief from them when the main system is down. However; Flight Service's safety-critical function requires absolute RELIABILITY and CURRENCY -- something Internet sites simply CAN'T PROVIDE (Most of them will come with a disclaimer saying they are not for use for flight planning and to call Flight Service; despite the fact that they are exactly what Flight Service is relying on for flight planning...) Often times these sites will have delays that can last for as long as 5 to 10 minutes. This may not seem like much; but it's ample time for a pilot to get a brief and depart without the briefer EVER having a source to receive the advisory; as the 'official backup' does not provide it as it needs to. The fact that briefer s now must routinely brief unfamiliar areas with NO training/knowledge of local weather patterns; airspace; geography; or current weather trends compounds these issues. Coupling this lack of knowledge with unreliable/incomplete data is a recipe that guarantees; in time; a tragedy for an unknowing pilot and passengers who placed their trust in our company.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.