An Air Force U-2 spy plane was confirmed by a Pentagon spokesman to have been conducting training operations in the area when an air traffic control computer failure grounded flights to and from Los Angeles-area airports last week, according to Reuters.
According to NBC sources said a U-2 plane, which is a Cold War-era spy plane still in use by the military, passing in the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center's airspace and overloaded a computer system at the center, Reuters reported. NBC reported it as Defense Department flight plan.
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, Reuters reported. The FAA released few details on the nature of the problem that caused its officials to halt flights.
According to Col. Steve Warren the necessary paperwork and flight plan had been submitted and added that it's not unusual for a U-2 to conduct operations in the area, the Associated Press reported. Warren added Monday that the high-flying spy plane's operations were conducted according to plan.
The airports affected were Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, California, John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California, and McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, according to Reuters.
Flights in other parts of the country bound for the wide swath of airspace in the Southwestern United States managed by the FAA's Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center were also grounded, Reuters reported.
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, according to Reuters.
"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.
