Airlines pass test for Y2K readiness

DENVER As Convair Three-Niner approaches the runway at DenverInternational Airport, the airplane also is nearing an imaginaryboundary: the dreaded Year 2000 witching hour.

It is moments before midnight, in a crucial test of the FederalAviation Administration's computer system. The clocks in the airportcontrol center are about to turn from Dec. 31, 1999, to Jan. 1, 2000.

The controller calls out, "Time is one minute prior to enteringthe new millennium in our test systems. How do you read thistransmission?"The pilot of the Convair replies: "Loud and clear, and if wedisappear off the screen, it means we went into the nextmillennium."A minute later, after the clocks …