Computer outage grounds all domestic United Airlines flights

(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 has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.