Air travelers across the country were left changing their plans on Thursday morning as an FAA computer glitch wreaked widespread havoc on regional airports.
The Federal Aviation Administration now says that the glitch lasted for about four hours and was corrected by 9 a.m., but it’s effects are still being felt by many travelers whose flights have been delayed or canceled.
The trouble began when a piece of networking equipment at a computer center in Salt Lake City crashed at about 5 a.m., according to an official FAA statement.
That kept air traffic control computers in other parts of the USA from communicating with each other. Air traffic controllers had to input complex flight plans themselves as they couldn’t be automatically transferred from computers in one part of the country to computers in another, thereby crippling the entire system.
Two computer centers in Salt Lake City and near Atlanta were affected, along with 21 regional radar centers around the country.
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