Air Traffic Computer Fails, Delaying Flights

Nearly 140 airline flights at five airports in the Southwest were delayed up to 90 minutes when the region’s new air traffic control computer in Palmdale failed, the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday.

The computer at the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center failed at 5:07 a.m. Thursday. It was fully restored at 8:05 a.m.

It guides flights north of the U.S.-Mexico border, over parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah and the Pacific Ocean.

“It was the main computer that processes flight information,” FAA spokesman Mitch Barker said from Seattle. “They could still see the blips, but the screen didn’t show what the aircraft were.”

The controllers relied on their memories to identify planes on their screens and guide flights to their destinations, Barker said. No airplanes were endangered, he said.

The failure delayed 41 aircraft at Los Angeles International for 30 to 45 minutes, two aircraft at Burbank Airport for 16 minutes, 24 aircraft at Las Vegas for 52 to 81 minutes, 13 at Orange County for 53 to 51 minutes and 57 at San Diego for 50 to 90 minutes, Barker said.

The cause of the computer failure hadn’t been determined, Barker said.

Until the problem was fixed, the FAA imposed what it calls a “ground stop”--preventing planes from taking off and entering airspace controlled by the Palmdale center. The FAA later allowed airports to let flights take off after getting permission individually from the Palmdale center.

The Palmdale center was the fifth in the United States to begin using the new computer system, called Host and Oceanic Computer System Replacement, installed last year as part of a nationwide $425-million FAA modernization.