Computer glitch broke air traffic in the US

Early yesterday morning, air traffic on the east coast of the United States and in the south of the country was seriously disrupted . Nearly 3,500 flights had to be postponed, almost all flights were postponed at the busiest American airport in Atlanta, the interval between aircraft was increased from 13 to 32 kilometers at the airport, as a result of which the airport’s capacity dropped by half. As it turned out , the reason was a computer failure, namely, the failure of a single router.

This is a router in the NADIN computer center (National Airspace Data Interchange Network), which is located in Salt Lake City. The NADIN system is engaged in the processing of flight plans: it receives them from each aircraft in electronic form and transmits them to the controllers who track the position of the aircraft on radars. In addition, NADIN processes weather and wind conditions.

Because of the glitch, the dispatchers had to take flight plans by telephone and manually enter them into the system. In addition, the almost complete stop of the airport in Atlanta (caused, among other things, by bad weather conditions) led to a chain reaction of delays at many other airports (the above shows the main US airports).