Hundreds of flights were grounded and travellers delayed after a computer glitch at an air traffic centre in Leesburg, Virginia.
Flights out of New York and Washington were the ones grounded, and according to reports, some delays were as long as three hours.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the issue was resolved, but that didn’t help the majority of travellers who had missed connection flights or had to be somewhere for a certain time due to work or personal reasons.
The fault was not due to hacking, but to a glitch in a computer system known as ERAM, that is used at 20 air traffic control centres up and down the country.
In a statement, the agency claimed:
The FAA is continuing its root cause analysis to determine what caused the problem and is working closely with the airlines to minimize impacts to travellers.
Around 400 flights were thought to have been delayed, with Washington’s Dulles International Airport and Reagan National Airport, as well as New York’s LaGuardia and John F Kennedy International Airport all affected.
