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FAA flight plan computer crashes

by on27 August 2008

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Software glitch causes major flight delays

A computer failure in the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s computer system that processes flight plans caused significant delays in flight across the U.S. on Tuesday. The failure at the FAA’s central computer system in Atlanta, Georgia, occurred about 1:00 P.M. EDT and affected hundreds of flights.

The FAA said that "There were about 5,000 flight plans in the system, but a lot of them were airborne and unaffected," said Hank Krakowski, COO of the FAA's Air Traffic Organization. "The only flights that were affected were those that had already pushed off from the gates and couldn't get off the ground. It created a backlog."

The failure in Atlanta caused an FAA back up system to take over the flight plan management, but there was apparently a backlog in the switch over, which caused even more delays. Hardest hit were flights from cities on the East Coast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, with airports in Boston, Washington, D.C. and Atlanta reporting the most congestion. Chicago O'Hare reported 1 to 1½ hour delays throughout the afternoon, and FAA officials said that Atlanta had as many as 40 aircraft backed up to take off during the afternoon.

The cause of the massive failure and foiled back up system transfer has not yet been determined, but the shutdown caused a mushroom effect throughout the system, creating even more delays.

As of the late Tuesday evening, New York’s La Guardia and Newark, New Jersey were still reporting 1 to 1½ hour delays and Atlanta’s Hartsfield airport still had significant air traffic congestion, aggravated by intense thunderstorms in the area.

Last modified on 27 August 2008
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