{UAH} U-2 spy plane caused widespread shutdown of U.S. flights: report

U-2 spy plane caused widespread shutdown of U.S. flights: report

A U-2 "Dragon Lady" aircraft takes off from Osan Air Base, South Korea in this U.S. Air Force handout photo taken on October 21, 2009. A U-2 flight was the possible cause of a software glitch at a major air traffic control center in California on Wednesday which resulted in the cancellation of hundreds of flights, NBC News reported on Saturday. REUTERS/U.S. Air Force/Staff Sgt. Brian Ferguson/Handout (SOUTH KOREA)

• LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A U-2 spy plane caused a computer glitch at a California air traffic control center that led officials to halt takeoffs on Wednesday at several airports in the Southwestern United States and ground planes bound for the region from other parts of the country, NBC reported on Saturday.

The computer problem at a Federal Aviation Administration center slowed the journeys of tens of thousands of arriving and departing passengers at Los Angeles International Airport, one of the busiest in the country.

Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, California, John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California, and McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas were among other facilities affected by the order to keep planes grounded.

So were flights in other parts of the country that were bound for the wide swath of airspace in the Southwestern United States managed by the FAA's Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center.

The FAA has released few details on the nature of the problem that caused its officials to halt flights.

The Pentagon could not immediately be reached for comment.

NBC, citing unnamed sources, reported a U-2, a Cold War-era spy plane still in use by the U.S. military, passed through air space monitored by the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center and appears to have overloaded a computer system at the center.

Computers at the center began operations to prevent the U-2 from colliding with other aircraft, even though the U-2 was flying at an altitude of 60,000 feet and other airplanes passing through the region's air space were miles below, NBC reported.

Sources told NBC News the U-2 plane had a U.S. Defense Department flight plan. "It was a 'Dragon Lady,'" one source told NBC, using the nickname for the plane.

FAA spokeswoman Lynn Lunsford would not comment on whether the computer problem at the agency's center on Wednesday was caused by a U-2 flight.

"We aren't confirming anything beyond what we already said about it being a software issue that we corrected," Lunsford said in an email to Reuters.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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