'Computer issue' halts departing flights at LAX
All flights out of Los Angeles International Airport were halted on Wednesday due to a "computer issue" at Los Angeles Flight Center in Palmdale, California, an LAX spokesman told CNBC.
The ground stop went into effect at 1:45 p.m. PT and was lifted by 4 p.m.
Over 30 departing flights at Los Angeles International Airport were temporarily held due to the order, and about 10 flights bound for the airport were diverted to other facilities and expected to depart for LAX within hours, airport spokeswoman Nancy Suey Castles told Reuters in an email.
The Federal Aviation Administration put in place a similar stop on takeoffs at John Wayne Airport in Orange County and Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, but those stops were later lifted as well, according to statements on the Southern California facilities' Twitter pages.
FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said the agency's Los Angeles Center air traffic control facility experienced "technical issues" and temporarily stopped accepting additional flights into the airspace managed by the center.
"Some flights were diverted and the agency issued a nationwide ground stop for flights heading into the airspace managed by the center," Gregor said in a statement. He could not be reached for further comment.
Bob Hope Airport said in a Twitter post that the ground stop had been issued due to computer problems with the FAA's system, and Parsons also said she believed the halt on takeoffs was related to a computer problem.
—Reported by NBC's Jeff Daniels; Reuters contributed to this report