Computer Glitch Fixed at LAX
A Seattle Police officer stands outside a cafe where a shooting took place, Wednesday, May 30, 2012. / AP Photo/Ted S. Warren
A computer failure that left thousands of travelers trapped on planes and stuck for hours in the terminal at Los Angeles International Airport was fixed, and flights were back to normal Monday.
International flights were arriving on time and travelers coming to the U.S. were making it smoothly through the airport's checkpoints, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Mike Fleming.
The computer malfunction, which began at 2 p.m. Saturday and lasted nearly 10 hours, prevented authorities from screening passengers arriving in the U.S. It delayed more than 17,000 people arriving from overseas.
Fleming said a computer switch failed, which knocked down the entire communications system. A backup system was in place, but it was accessible only to customs officers in some of the lanes where passengers were being processed, creating huge bottlenecks.
"We've had outages in the past, but they haven't taken nearly as long to resolve," Fleming said. "This was unprecedented in terms of impact."
During the outage, passengers were kept on planes after the terminals that normally accept international travelers became full because the previous arrivals couldn't be processed.
Though the entire system was up and running by 11:45 p.m. Saturday, it took officials until around 4 a.m. Sunday to finish processing the backlog of incoming passengers, Fleming said.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. International flights were arriving on time and travelers coming to the U.S. were making it smoothly through the airport's checkpoints, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Mike Fleming.
The computer malfunction, which began at 2 p.m. Saturday and lasted nearly 10 hours, prevented authorities from screening passengers arriving in the U.S. It delayed more than 17,000 people arriving from overseas.
Fleming said a computer switch failed, which knocked down the entire communications system. A backup system was in place, but it was accessible only to customs officers in some of the lanes where passengers were being processed, creating huge bottlenecks.
"We've had outages in the past, but they haven't taken nearly as long to resolve," Fleming said. "This was unprecedented in terms of impact."
During the outage, passengers were kept on planes after the terminals that normally accept international travelers became full because the previous arrivals couldn't be processed.
Though the entire system was up and running by 11:45 p.m. Saturday, it took officials until around 4 a.m. Sunday to finish processing the backlog of incoming passengers, Fleming said.
I mean look at China, who knows how long they have been contaminating the food and now they are selling guns to the Iranians to be used against your military. And the only reason that anyone has started paying attention to the human food is because of the tainted animal food. It took cats and dogs to start dying before anyone took notice.
People are expecting some big thing to happen when maybe it will be something less noticable like a gradual poisoning or something.
~~~
I agree 100%. This whole Homeland Security is smoke and mirrors. With the delays and general annoyance of air travel today, they will never be able to stop a person who really wants to do harm (and we had those people before 9/11, so this is nothing new). All this nonsense about 4 ounces of gel products and having to buy your bottled water at the airport instead of bringing a cheaper bottle from home will never guarantee our safety. Why? Because life is full of risks, and no one can guarantee your safety. Also, if you know how to do it, your thumb is a lethal weapon. So what is this taking off your shoes garbage?
Lets get Haliburton...maybe they know who's in control.
But what would all you whiners do if they went ahead and let everyone get on the plane without being able to check for information on those computers and let the WRONG person on the plane. You'd really be whining then.
What do you think is going to happen, one day, when the plane you are flying in or the train that you are on, has a computer glitch? It would be "bye,bye" time.
AMERICANS ARE TOO COMPLACENT AND CODDLED!!
That is the risk when you fly. I don't feel sorry for any of those people.
Wait until a few more years when the sun issues start to interfere with the electronic devices we depend on world wide.
)O(