- Nov 25, 1999
- 7,926
- 43
This week has been a roller coaster ride. Tuesday evening, the access control system at the airport that I have been doing work at stated acting funky. I'm doing contract work at the airport on the fire alarm and went to work Wednesday figureing I would get some tasks done on my project. I was met in the main terminal by the head of airport operations, their tech supervisor, LAN specialist, lead tech, top airport administrator and the on site head of TSA(Transport Security Administration.
Myself and a coworker were asked if we thought we could troubleshoot the problem and make emergency repairs. Not being familiar with their system, I causiously said I could make an assessment. They then informed me that if we could not resolve 40 or so anomolies, they would have to lock down the entire airport and call in the National Guard and to add a bit of pressure they needed results by NOON!
Besides riding dirtbikes, I really dig troubleshooting and this was a chance to nail down a HUGE account. The biggest concern was to maintain complete function of the system and regain as many lost access points ASAP.
Within about an hour and half, my partner and I had found the likely problem and isolated the electronics from the system. This netted us a resolution to 95% of the anomolies. This was good news and it staved off the calling in of the National Guard. However, I still had 5 perimeter doors that would allow any airport issued badge to open, regardless of clearence. Worse yet, there was no way to track entry into restricted areas. They gave me till 5:00 to resolve 3 of the doors or they would be forced into making the dreaded call to the Governor's office, the FAA, TSA, and Office of Homeland Securtiy. With uniformed Police officers posted conspicuously at these doors, we continued to press on.
By 4:00 pm we had the most critical doors resolved but each time we tried to correct the others, we would loose some that had been brought back online. This yo-yo continued until 7:00 pm and finally all of the higher muckity-mucks decided that my temporary fix for the last few doors would be good enough for the night.
I had just spent 12 hours straight on my feet, the night before I got Zero sleep. I was beat. The next day brought the same results as the last three hours of Wednesday. Very discouraged, we went home and got some sleep. Friday morning was going to be interesting.
While I was on the phone with tech services, my partner overheard an airport maintenance employee talking about a problem with their conveyors. He called me on the radio and informed me of their problems. Not really thinking the access control could be affected by the conveyors, I went ahead and had a conversation with the maintenance guy he had overheard. Turns out to be the break we were searching for. In closing, 6, $5.00 relays could have prevented the entire event if they had been installed by the original company doing the access control system. Instead, literally, nearly $100K worth of parts and labor were spent to repair the back feed of high voltage electricity into a low voltage circuit board.
I think all of the authorities would have given me a limo ride home for keeping them from having to execute mandates for loss of security at an International Airport. I may have my own parking place on Monday. :aj:
Myself and a coworker were asked if we thought we could troubleshoot the problem and make emergency repairs. Not being familiar with their system, I causiously said I could make an assessment. They then informed me that if we could not resolve 40 or so anomolies, they would have to lock down the entire airport and call in the National Guard and to add a bit of pressure they needed results by NOON!
Besides riding dirtbikes, I really dig troubleshooting and this was a chance to nail down a HUGE account. The biggest concern was to maintain complete function of the system and regain as many lost access points ASAP.
Within about an hour and half, my partner and I had found the likely problem and isolated the electronics from the system. This netted us a resolution to 95% of the anomolies. This was good news and it staved off the calling in of the National Guard. However, I still had 5 perimeter doors that would allow any airport issued badge to open, regardless of clearence. Worse yet, there was no way to track entry into restricted areas. They gave me till 5:00 to resolve 3 of the doors or they would be forced into making the dreaded call to the Governor's office, the FAA, TSA, and Office of Homeland Securtiy. With uniformed Police officers posted conspicuously at these doors, we continued to press on.
By 4:00 pm we had the most critical doors resolved but each time we tried to correct the others, we would loose some that had been brought back online. This yo-yo continued until 7:00 pm and finally all of the higher muckity-mucks decided that my temporary fix for the last few doors would be good enough for the night.
I had just spent 12 hours straight on my feet, the night before I got Zero sleep. I was beat. The next day brought the same results as the last three hours of Wednesday. Very discouraged, we went home and got some sleep. Friday morning was going to be interesting.
While I was on the phone with tech services, my partner overheard an airport maintenance employee talking about a problem with their conveyors. He called me on the radio and informed me of their problems. Not really thinking the access control could be affected by the conveyors, I went ahead and had a conversation with the maintenance guy he had overheard. Turns out to be the break we were searching for. In closing, 6, $5.00 relays could have prevented the entire event if they had been installed by the original company doing the access control system. Instead, literally, nearly $100K worth of parts and labor were spent to repair the back feed of high voltage electricity into a low voltage circuit board.
I think all of the authorities would have given me a limo ride home for keeping them from having to execute mandates for loss of security at an International Airport. I may have my own parking place on Monday. :aj:
