FAA computer glitch causes widespread delays, cancellations

US FAA's computer system that processes flight plans failed for about 4 hr. yesterday, leading to numerous flight delays and cancellations throughout the country, the second such glitch in the past 15 months.

In August 2008, its computer system in Atlanta that processes flight plans went down for several hours (ATWOnline, Aug. 27, 2008). The malfunction yesterday was at the agency's other center that electronically processes flight plans in Salt Lake City. FAA said that "a router problem" occurred at around 5 a.m. EST, rendering the flight plan processing system ineffective and forcing flight plans to be handled manually. The "software configuration problem" in Salt Lake City also affected flight plan processing at the Atlanta center, FAA said.

Airlines were forced to use fax machines to send in flight plans that then had to be entered manually by controllers. The problem was fixed by 9 a.m., FAA said. Dozens of flights were cancelled, but the most common consequence was delays as the slower flight plan processing was occurring. Delta Air Lines reported that nearly half of its flights departed late during the period. Delays of 30 min. to 1 hr. at major airports were reported by a number of airlines, with delays lingering throughout the late morning and early afternoon at several airports.

"Air traffic control radar and communication with aircraft were not affected during this time and critical safety systems remained up and running," FAA said in a statement. "There is no indication the outage occurred as a result of a cyber attack." It added that Administrator Randy Babbitt "is meeting with representatives from Harris Corporation, the company that manages the [computer system], to discuss system corrections to prevent similar outages in the future."