Thousands of Travelers Stranded in Latest Flight-Related Mess

by Finding Dulcinea    August 27, 2008

Posted to findingDulcinea by Cara McDonough

Airports in the northeast were hardest hit by the computer problem reported by the Federal Aviation Administration Tuesday afternoon, which occurred at a Hampton, Ga., facility that processes flight plans for the eastern half of the country.

FAA spokeswoman Diane Spitaliere said she was not sure when an investigation into the problem would be completed, but it “usually takes a while to be quite honest,” reported the Associated Press.

The agency did say that the software issue, which resulted in a communication problem between the Georgia facility and another facility in Salt Lake City, did not cause any safety problems; officials were still able to speak to pilots in the air and on the ground.

The issue first surfaced at about 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. At Hartfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, there were flight delays of about 90 minutes for departures, and arriving flights were being held.

Delays at other airports were much longer—up to two hours in some cases—CNN reported, but the delays began to clear at about 5 p.m. and were pretty much resolved by 9:30 p.m. Some airports, including Newark and LaGuardia, were still reporting delays Wednesday morning, but they were mostly weather-related.

find out more at findingDulcinea

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Rate It:

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5