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US Customs and Border Protection Computer Crashes Last Week Causing Delays at US Airports

Few Media Outlets Report The Outage

1 min read
US Customs and Border Protection Computer Crashes Last Week Causing Delays at US Airports

Last Wednesday night at about 1850 EDST, a national US Customs and Border Protection computer crashed causing major delays for arriving international passengers across the US. According to this story from WFTV Channel 9 in Orlando, Florida, arriving passengers at Orlando International Airport had to wait for several hours to clear customs even after the computer was back in operation at about 2055.  Passengers also could not call relatives or friends to tell them what had happened, because you can't use your cell phone while waiting to clear customs.

What I found interesting was that only three television stations in Florida (the two others being WSVN Channel 7 and WFOR Channel 4 both in Miami) carried the news story at all. There has been no print or web-only reporting that I can find. The Customs and Border Protection website has nary a word on it either.

In August of 2007, a computer meltdown at LAX caused problems with about 11,000 arriving passengers and that hit the national news across the country. At least that many passengers were affected across the country, I would guess. Some 2,000 were stuck Wednesday night at Miami International, and another 800 at Orlando International as well just for starters.

Is this a case that if a computer crashes in the woods, and no one is there to see it, it doesn't really happen?

Or did the August 2007 episode just happen on a slow news day?

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