iPad glitch grounds dozens of American Airlines flights

DALLAS, April 29 (UPI) -- About two dozen American Airlines flights were grounded late Tuesday after an apparent glitch on the iPads used by pilots for navigation.

American Airlines officials said the software applications on the iPads that provide pilots with digital maps had problems. Airline officials did not identify the problems.

"Some flights are experiencing an issue with a software application on pilot iPads," American Airlines said in a statement. "In some cases, the flight has had to return to the gate to access a WiFi connection to fix the issue."

In 2013, American became the first airline to get FAA approval to use iPads in all stages of flight, including navigation.

Passengers aboard some of the grounded flights took to Twitter to express concerns.

The entire American Airlines fleet is at a ground stop b/c the pilots' iPads can't retrieve the flight plans. @AmericanAir, keep us posted.

— Toni Jacaruso (@HotelNinja) April 29, 2015

I'm on an American Airlines flight right now, so I'm not thrilled to hear their iPad-based infrastructure "crashed" http://t.co/2ZMJlPeNYp

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— Scott McCollum (@Sc0ttMcC) April 29, 2015

@dfwairport I'm on an AA flight on the Tarmac b/c the pilot had an iPad crash. It's the entire American Air fleet. Is it other airlines too?

— Toni Jacaruso (@HotelNinja) April 29, 2015