Computer outage grounds all domestic United Airlines flights

A United Airlines plane.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

For two hours on Sunday night, every domestic United Airlines flight was grounded due to a computer outage, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The ground stop was issued at United's request, the FAA said, and international flights were not affected. United blamed the ground stop on "an IT issue," and U.S. officials told NBC News the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) was having issues with low bandwidth. The ground stop was originally scheduled to end at 8 p.m. ET, but it wasn't lifted until shortly after 9 p.m.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.