Nov 19, 2009 11:15 pm US/Eastern
Airlines Scramble After Flight System Conks Out
FAA Confirms Problem With Flight Processing Computer System; Says System Is Fixed, Flights Still Seriously Affected
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
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A five-hour computer glitch grounds hundreds of flights and delays passengers. Some of those planes were at Baltimore's airport.
WJZ
A five-hour computer glitch grounds hundreds of flights and delays passengers.
Kai Jackson reports some of those planes were at Baltimore's airport.
Widespread delays, day-long cancellations and a domino effect grounded hundreds of planes at several major airports nationwide. The cause was a five-hour glitch in the FAA computer system that collects flight plans.
The FAA says the problem started at a computer center in Salt Lake City around 5 a.m. Thursday. The backlog of planes that needed to take off reached as far away as Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, one of the world's busiest. Though not as many as Atlanta, the effects of the glitch reached BWI/Thurgood Marshall.
"The airlines were communicating to the customers that there were some delays from a nationwide perspective," said BWI spokesperson Jonathan Dean.
The glitch hit Delta and AirTran planes the hardest.
"Everything is delayed, everything is backed up," said Lela Richardson, who was headed to Atlanta for a family emergency.
She arrived two hours early, only to wait.
"The flight at 9 was booked up and I couldn't get on. He said I would probably not be able to get on any flights today," she said.
While BWI says the malfunction didn't cause many delays here, it did give airlines a chance to practice, because next week is the start of the busy holiday travel season.
"This was a very rare episode and it didn't have any effect here locally. We do have plans in place to deal with such situations," Dean said.
This was the second time in 15 months that the FAA computer system glitched.
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