Thousands of US flights delayed or cancelled due to computer glitch
- US government launched an investigation after computer system that offers safety information to pilots failed
- The nationwide aviation halt was believed to be the first such stop order since the September 11 attacks
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Thousands of flights in the US grounded due to system glitch
The US aviation sector was struggling to return to normal on Wednesday following a nationwide ground stop imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over a computer issue that forced a 90-minute halt to all US departing flights.
Almost 9,600 flights have been delayed so far and over 1,300 cancelled, according to FlightAware, in the first national grounding of flights in about two decades. Many industry officials compared the grounding to what occurred after the terror attacks on September 11, 2001.
The total number of flights disrupted topped 10,900 and was still rising but airline officials expressed confidence that normal operations could largely return by Thursday.
Major carriers like Southwest Airlines Co, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines all reported 40 per cent or more of flights Wednesday delayed or cancelled.
FAA officials said a preliminary review traced the outage to a damaged database file, but added there was no evidence of a cyberattack and the investigation was continuing. The same file corrupted both the main system and its backup, said people familiar with the review, who asked not to be identified.
FAA officials said they were working to “further pinpoint the causes” so the problem can be avoided in the future.
