LAX passengers endure frustrating aftermath of nationwide outage

Computer outage causes major flight delays at airports across the nation

All US flights were grounded Wednesday morning as the FAA reported a nationwide system outage.

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles International Airport and airports across the country were working to catch up Wednesday morning after all U.S. flights were temporarily grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration due to a nationwide outage.

By 6 a.m. PST, the FAA lifted the ground stop. However, many passengers were left confused and frustrated.

At LAX, there were 26 flight cancellations as of Wednesday afternoon, along with more than 350 delayed flights in and out of the airport, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware. Nationally, there were more than 9,600 delays of flights within, into or out of the United States, along with roughly 1,300 cancellations, according to FlightAware.

Hollywood Burbank Airport had 62 delayed flights and 19 cancellations, while John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana had 104 delays and nine cancellations. Long Beach had 38 delays and 10 cancellations.

FOX 11’s Mario Ramirez was at the American Airlines terminal and said passengers were offered hotel vouchers for those who reside outside LA County.

Other passengers told Ramirez they sat on planes on the tarmac for hours before they were told they would have to de-board.

"I got here at 12:30 a.m. and I expected to leave on time. Then there was a delay, then there was another delay, and then they came out saying they weren’t sure what was going on," one passenger told Ramirez.

He continued to say those who lived in LA County were ordered to go home and those who resided outside LA County would be provided with a hotel voucher.

According to the FAA, the agency's Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system "failed" and led to the grounding of flights. The NOTAM system notifies workers of flight operations of essential information.

"The FAA has ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9 a.m. Eastern Time to allow the agency to validate the integrity of flight and safety information," the agency announced overnight.

"The President has been briefed by the Secretary of Transportation this morning on the FAA system outage. There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes. The FAA will provide regular updates,"White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

In a statement, the FAA blamed a corrupted file for problems with a crucial FAA safety system that halted early morning flights.

"The FAA is continuing a thorough review to determine the root cause of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system outage. Our preliminary work has traced the outage to a damaged database file. At this time, there is no evidence of a cyberattack. The FAA is working diligently to further pinpoint the causes of this issue and take all needed steps to prevent this kind of disruption from happening again."