Communications equipment breakdown causes havoc 27 AUG 2008: Hundreds of flights were affected as every major airport in the United States experienced flight delays Tuesday afternoon because of a communications breakdown at a Federal Aviation Administration facility. An FAA spokeswoman said there were no safety issues and officials were still able to speak to pilots on planes on the ground and in the air. The bulk of the problems were centered around Boston, Chicago and other airports in the East.
The delays were a result of problems with part of the computer system that processes and approves instrument flight plans around the country.
The facility south of Atlanta had difficulty processing data, necessitating all flight-plan information be processed through Salt Lake City, Utah. The two facilities process all flight plans for commercial and general aviation flights in the United States
The administration said there were no radar outages and said they did not lose contact with any planes.
It was not known exactly how many flights were affected, but a spokesperson said it was ‘in the hundreds’. The FAA did not expect to have total figures until later today. In a 24-hour period the FAA processes more than 300,000 flight plans in the US.
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