By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.Com
Early morning air travelers Thursday experienced delays getting to their destinations when a problem with one of the Federal Aviation Administration's computer systems prevented planes from departing some East Coast airports.
The problem was corrected a few hours later, but the ripple effect on flights were felt at U.S. airports well into the afternoon.
The FAA said the glitch prevented pilots from being able to access flight plans, normally an automatic function provided by the computer system. The problem began around 6 a.m. EST and was first noted at Atlanta's airport, where the FAA computer system is based. It's not known at this time how many flights were affected.
An FAA spokesman said that, in response to the problem, flight plans were processed manually, causing the delays. In addition to the delays, several airlines were forced to cancel some flights.
The FAA said the computer glitch did not pose a safety issue. It did not affect planes that were in the air. Flight plans remained accessible in the cockpit if they had been loaded before the failure, the agency said.
The failure blocked communication between 'FAA computers located at airports around the country. As a work-around, flight controllers typed in the flight plans themselves because they weren't accessible from the computer network. The affected planes couldn't leave the gate until the complex plans had been entered into the system hence the delays.
The FAA said two major computer centers near Atlanta and Salt Lake City were affected, along with 21 regional radar centers scattered throughout the U.S.
