Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed at Denver International Airport in the state of Colorado following a widespread disruption in the US air traffic control network. The images released from this airport on Saturday, November 23, show the congestion of passengers, the filling of the waiting halls and the number of passengers who are forced to sit on the ground or rest in the passenger terminal.
At least 430 flights were delayed and more than 380 canceled at the Denver airport as of the time of the Reuters report, according to flight tracking website FlightAver.
This disruption follows the unprecedented suspension of flights across the United States on Friday, November 22, when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a nationwide suspension of outbound flights due to a problem with air traffic control center communications systems. This order lasted almost five hours and caused a large number of departing flights to stop at American airports.
Sean Duffy, US Secretary of Transportation, announced that the source of the disruption was the repair and renovation of telecommunications equipment at one of the Federal Aviation Administration's remote centers. During this operation, the system contractor would replace the old copper lines with fiber optic cables, when the installation of a new router caused disruption and overload in the communication network.