Air traffic was snarled and passengers’ tempers frayed on Saturday as many flights to and from airports throughout a large swath of the US stretching from New York to the Carolinas were delayed or canceled.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) blamed the problem on “technical issues” at an air traffic control center in Leesburg, Virginia. About 4pm the agency said the problem had been resolved and that officials were working to lift any remaining orders to hold planes on the ground.
Delays began building about 9:45am according to flight monitoring Web site FlightRadar24. Flights bound for airports in the Washington area were some of the most affected, including Washington’s Reagan National Airport and Dulles International Airport, as well as Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in North Carolina.
Photo: AFP
By mid-afternoon, 50 percent of inbound flights and 42 percent of outbound flights had been canceled at Reagan National, and delays were averaging about three hours, according to FlightRadar24.
In Baltimore, 58 percent of inbound flights and 36 of outbound flights had been canceled and delays were averaging more than one hour.
Flights departing from New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport and New York’s John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports that normally fly over the Washington region were also affected, although the aministration had said it was trying to route the flights around the affected area.
Administration officials had no immediate estimate of how many flights were affected, but FlightRadar24 spokesman Ian Petchenik said it was certainly in the hundreds.
The administration said in a statement that the snarl was the result of an “automation problem” at the Leesburg center.
The center handles high-altitude air traffic for the affected region. The problem was not believed to be caused by any accident or hacking.
Information posted online by the administration indicated there was a problem with the En Route Automation Modernization computer system at the Leesburg center.
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