> 3. Had the higher-priority request arrived even one millisecond earlier or later, the update would have completed normally.
Well, that's comforting to know.
BBC: "Flight chaos caused by software defect in space of a millisecond, report says"
Sky: "'Millisecond' software error caused air traffic outage that grounded thousands of flights"
The Guardian: "Flight chaos for hundreds of thousands was caused in ‘millisecond’ by software error"
Sounds like pure bad luck.
Safety critical systems demand formal verification. This wasn't bad luck, this was poor craft.