JFL Terminal 1

Airport operations across the US have come to a halt due to technical issues with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) computer system.

The disruptions that lasted for about 90 minutes on Wednesday, reportedly affected the immigration and customs screening, causing major delays for international travellers.

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A malfunction with the system that compares the lists of air travel passengers to terror watch lists, caused backups in the line at Customs at the entry port across several airports.

Delays were reported at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Boston’s Logan International, Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta, Dallas Forth-Worth International, and Charlotte’s Douglas International Airport.

However, the travellers continued to be checked against the watch list during the disruption.

"At this time, there is no indication the service disruption was malicious in nature. "

Officials denied there was any malicious intention behind the outage and said the system was back online shortly after 9PM.

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An official was quoted by NBC News as saying: "At this time, there is no indication the service disruption was malicious in nature."

Additionally, computers and kiosks where passengers fill out self-service declaration forms went down, forcing them to fill out green paper forms at Boston Logan International Airport.

Image: John F. Kennedy International Airport. Photo: Courtesy of Doug Letterman