Time to upgrade the 486, eh?
WASHINGTON -- A computer failure in the nation's air-traffic control system caused untold flight delays Friday, the Federal Aviation Adminstration said.
A computer system in Atlanta that processes pilots' flights plans and sends them to air-traffic controllers failed late Thursday or early Friday, FAA spokeswoman Diane Spitaliere said. The agency rerouted the system's functions to another computer in Salt Lake City, which overloaded due to the increased volume of data, magnifying the problem.
The FAA could not immediately calculate the number of flight delays caused by the problem, which was made worse by bad weather, Spitaliere said.
Although the computer problem was fixed Friday morning, its impact lingered on into the late afternoon, especially in New York, Spitaliere said.