Briefly in the news

The failure of an aviation radar system in the Los Angeles area

Thursday morning caused delays of some flights leaving John Wayne

Airport.

A radar system used to track flights in the airspace around Los

Angeles International Airport failed shortly after 7 a.m. and was

inoperable for about 10 minutes.

Later, the system crashed again, this time for about 40 minutes, from

about 10:20 to 11 a.m., said Nghia Nguyen, a spokeswoman for John Wayne

Airport.

The technical glitch held up northbound departures from Orange County

to the Bay Area and points north, Nguyen said. In all, nine flights out

of John Wayne were forced to wait, some for as long as an hour and a

half.

Nguyen said the radar trouble did not prevent planes from landing at

John Wayne, and it also did not affect eastbound departures.