'problem was not believed to be of great consequence'

[Taro Toporific]

Computer bug paralyzed Japan's air traffic system
Nando Times [registration required] / TOKYO (March 16, 2003 10:58 p.m. EST) - The government said Thursday a glitch in a program made by technology giant NEC Corp., overlooked by both aviation bureau and company technicians for months, led to the failure of Japan's central air traffic control system two weeks ago.
...defect on a program installed by NEC on the central system that collects flight data from airports nationwide ...In January, NEC technicians discovered the same defect but decided not to report it as the system had been running smoothly for four months and left it unfixed.
"The problem was not believed to be of great consequence" ...

[cstaylor]

Wait... how does a data collection feature hose up the system? Sounds like the entire system needs reworking...