Flights all over the US suffered delays on Tuesday as a Federal Aviation Administration Facility which processes flight plans for the eastern half of the country experienced an electronic communication failure.

According to Kathleen Bergen, FAA spokesperson in Atlanta, the problem occurred at the FAA facility in Hampton, Georgia where there was a failure in the communication link that transmits data to a similar facility in Salt Lake City. As a result, all flight plans for the eastern part of the country were being handled at the Salt Lake City facility alone, leading to delays in departure flights. The northeast was worst hit even though planes taking off from other parts of the country were also affected.

The communications failure occurred in FAA facility at Georgia on Tuesday afternoon leading to delays till early evening. However after that most of the flights returned to their normal schedules with only flights from Atlanta and Chicago continuing to suffer delays. Bergen also clarified that the delays in take off were caused by the technical glitch in the FAA facility and there were no safety issues. The pilots of all planes on ground and air could be reached and were in constant touch with officials.