Cascading flight delays across U.S. after FAA computer outage

A computer outage at the Federal Aviation Administration brought flights to a standstill across the U.S. on Wednesday, with hundreds of delays quickly cascading through the system at airports nationwide.

A computer outage at the Federal Aviation Administration brought flights to a standstill across the U.S. on Wednesday, with hundreds of delays quickly cascading through the system at airports nationwide.

The FAA ordered all U.S. flights to delay departures until 9 a.m. Eastern, though airlines said they were aware of the situation and had already begun grounding flights.

At 7:30 a.m. Eastern, there were more than 1,200 delayed flights within, into or out of the United States, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. More than 100 have been cancelled.

Most delays were concentrated along the East Coast, but were beginning to spread west. Inbound international flights are into Miami International Airport continued to land, but all departures have been delayed since 6:30 a.m., said airport spokesman Greg Chin.

The FAA said it was working on restoring its Notice to Air Missions System.

"We are performing final validation checks and reloading the system now," the FAA said. "Operations across the National Airspace System are affected."

The agency said that some functions are beginning to come back on line, but that "National Airspace System operations remain limited."