SoylentNews

DannyB [soylentnews.org] writes:

The Register:
Boeing 787s must be turned off and on every 51 days to prevent 'misleading data' being shown to pilots [theregister.co.uk]
US air safety bods call it 'potentially catastrophic' if reboot directive not implemented

he US Federal Aviation Administration has ordered Boeing 787 operators to switch their aircraft off and on every 51 days to prevent what it called "several potentially catastrophic failure scenarios" – including the crashing of onboard network switches.

The airworthiness directive, [europa.eu] due to be enforced from later this month, orders airlines to power-cycle their B787s before the aircraft reaches the specified days of continuous power-on operation.

The power cycling is needed to prevent stale data from populating the aircraft's systems, a problem that has occurred on different 787 systems in the past.

Some googling found me this past issue from 2015:

Engadget:
To keep a Boeing Dreamliner flying, reboot once every 248 days [engadget.com]

[ . . . . ] According to the FAA, [amazonaws.com] there's a software bug in the 787 Dreamliner that can cause its electrical system to fail and, as a result, lead to "loss of control" of the plane. But why? The FAA says this is triggered by the aircraft's electrical generators, which could give out if they have been powered on continuously for over eight months.

        248 days == 2^31 100ths of a second. even in 2015, our airplanes have integer overflow bugs https://t.co/6Z8d4y9gjM [t.co]
        - Fiora Aeterna☄ (@FioraAeterna) May 1, 2015 [twitter.com]

"A Model 787 airplane that has been powered continuously for 248 days can lose all alternating current electrical power due to the generator control units simultaneously going into failsafe mode," the FAA said in a statement warning of the flaw. "We are issuing this AD to prevent loss of all AC electrical power, which could result in loss of control of the airplane." Boeing, for its part, is aware of the problem [thehill.com] and has reset the power on 787 Dreamliners currently in service. Most importantly, the company's already working on an update that will patch the software vulnerability -- though there's no word on when its jets will receive it.

At least I can take comfort that software in aircraft is probably more reliable than software in automobiles.

Original Submission