The top stories on CBS4.com
Nov 19, 2009 5:57 pm US/Eastern
Air Travelers Grounded By Computer Failure
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
Air travelers across the nation are facing major delays and flight cancellations after an FAA computer glitch hit the air travel system for the second time in 15 months. The FAA said the problem lasted around five hours and was fixed around 10 am, but delays could still linger hours after the failure.
The problem started at the computer centers in Salt Lake City and Atlanta that handle flight plans. The problem then began to snowball across the nation as controllers frantically tried to enter the information by hand.
Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was one of the worst airports affected, but the problem has spread quickly.
All airlines were hit by the delays. Airtran canceled 22 flights and delayed dozens more. American Airlines said several hundred flights will be delayed.
Kelly Brierley said the news of the delays caused some uncomfortable thoughts to pop up. "I think when you hear that all U.S. flights are grounded, when you hear that it's like, um. That was a little scary. But when you heard it's a computer problem, and they had to enter it manually, and then there was getting back going, and 30 minutes later it was less scary," Brierley said.
Check your flight status at Fort Lauderdale International Airport or Miami International Airport.In August of 2008, a software malfunction delayed hundreds of flights around the country. The FAA said at the time of the malfunction was a packet switch that failed due a to a database mismatch.
(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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