Takeoffs Resume At Southern California
Airports After Glitch Halts Flights
Send a link to a friend
[May 01, 2014]
By Alex Dobuzinskis
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — Takeoffs at
several southern California airports, including Los Angeles
International Airport, were halted for up to two hours on Wednesday
after computer problems led a federal air traffic control facility to
issue a "ground stop," officials said.
|
Flights at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) were held and
others bound for the airport were diverted to other destinations and
expected to depart for LAX within hours, airport spokeswoman Nancy
Suey Castles said in an email.
There were, in all, roughly 6,800 passengers on the 50 arriving and
departing flights that were canceled at LAX, Castles said.
Twenty-seven flights were diverted to other airports and thousands
of passengers suffered delays.
The ground stop at LAX, which last year served nearly 67 million
passengers, began at about 2 p.m. (3 p.m. EDT), said airport
spokeswoman Amanda Parsons. By 4 p.m., LAX announced it had been
lifted.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2014/May/01/images/ads/current/bennett_builders_sda_042414.png)
The Federal Aviation Administration put in place a similar stop on
takeoffs at John Wayne Airport in Orange County and Bob Hope Airport
in Burbank, but those stops were later lifted, according to
statements on the airports' Twitter pages.
FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said the agency's Los Angeles Center air
traffic control facility experienced "technical issues" and
temporarily stopped accepting additional flights into the airspace
it manages.
[to top of second column] |
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2014/May/01/images/ads/current/graue_lda_bbq_043014.jpg)
"Some flights were diverted and the agency issued a nationwide
ground stop for flights heading into the airspace managed by the
center," Gregor said in a statement. He could not be reached for
further comment.
Bob Hope Airport said in a Twitter post that the ground stop had
been issued due to computer problems with the FAA's system, and
Parsons also said she believed the halt on takeoffs was related to a
computer problem.
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis, Gregory Roumeliotis, and Eric M.
Johnson; editing by Ken Wills and Ron Popeski)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2014/May/01/images/ads/current/LINCOLN_theater_011411.png) |