Just delete a plane here or there

A got a major (though somewhat morbid) chuckle from this article in today's NY Times headlined "Failure in new computer diverts air traffic."

The system handles airplanes over water, beyond the range of land-based radar. It receives position reports relayed by satellite, and is supposed to allow planes to fly closer to one another while still assuring that they are safe from collision.

About 1 a.m. on Monday the system began to indicate that numerous airplanes were on paths that would bring them too close. Controllers say that the system occasionally generates such messages erroneously, and that this can be corrected by deleting a plane from the system and re-entering it. That procedure, however, takes three to five minutes and is hard to do for more than one plane at a time.

So, why be so impatient? Just wait a few minutes and the planes will delete themselves from the system.