Thousands of U.S. flights delayed after computer system outage

There was more air travel chaos across the United States Wednesday after the FAA air hazard warning system failed, leading to thousands of flights being delayed or cancelled. Officials are warning it could take another day before everything is back to normal.

there is something Eerie about this kindof Stillness at an airport normally busyrunways across the U.S remained emptywhile some passengers who'd alreadyboarded planes were forced back intoterminals kicking off an exhausting dayof travel for hundreds of thousands ofpeople I think this is my fourth delayright now so just kind of waiting it outhoping to get on a flight and get homethe FAA halted domestic departures forabout 90 minutes because of a problemwith its messaging system that deliverssafety alerts to Pilots trouble with theprogram started on Tuesday and while itwas resolved the cause is still underinvestigation there is no directindication of any kind of external ornefarious activity but we are not yetprepared to rule that out theinterruption caused thousands ofcancellations and delays which couldtake days to sort outit only adds to the frustration of U.Sair Travelers who navigated an absoluteGong Show over the holidays caused by acombination of severe weather andTechnical problems with SouthwestAirlines I think they need to dosomething better for sure because I knowa lot of people have been affected ifthey're trying to get to businessmeetings or if they have people in thehospital or funerals things like that sosomething I think truly needs to be donethe FAA is now Under Pressure to build amore robust messaging system to preventthis from happening again having abackup system is very important all thetime because it's it prevent or shortenthe downtime of your system but theagency is being praised for airing onthe side of caution so from yourperspective the FAA made the right calland putting Safety First it's always theright Courier safety compressed in theaviation industryand Katie I gathered tonight the FAA isfinally revealing what might have caused this FAA says all of this may have beencaused by a damaged database file inother words a computer problem CNN isreporting that officials thought thebest solution would be to reboot thesystem but of course that reboot did notgo as planned and we witnessed theaftermath and all of the cancellationsand delays things here at ReaganNational Airport they are extremely calmand passengers we spoke with were prettyunderstanding which is surprising givenhow many travel schedules were upendedAdrian yeah you bet Katie Simpson atReagan National in Virginia thank you