Eastern US air traffic system fails, but backups kick in

Washington

IF there was good news from the air traffic computer system failure that forced thousands of flights in the eastern US to be scrubbed or delayed last Saturday, it was that it never threatened to become a catastrophe.

"There was a lot of inconvenience and a loss of service, but there was never a loss of safety," John Hansman, a aeronautics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in an interview. "The good news is they were able to go to backups."

Flight disruptions persisted within the US on Sunday as airlines attempted to recover from the hours-long failure at a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) facility in Leesburg, Virginia, near Washington. The centre oversees long-range flights in airspace between New York and Atlanta. The breakdown caused 492 delays and 476 cancellations, according…