Customs and Border Protection computer outage caused long lines at airports

Aug. 16 (UPI) -- A computer outage snarled immigration and customs processing at airports across the country Friday afternoon, creating long lines on a busy summer travel day.

By 6:30 p.m. EDT, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the affected systems were coming back online and travelers were being processed.

"CBP will continue to monitor the incident," CBP tweeted. "There is no indication the disruption was malicious in nature at this time."

The CBP is investigating the cause of the outage and that travelers can expect longer than usual wait times at some airports. It was first reported in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington D.C.

"U.S. Customs and Border Protection is experiencing a temporary outage with its processing systems at various air ports of entry and is taking immediate action to address the technology disruption," CBP posted on Twitter. "CBP officers are working to process travelers as quickly as possible while maintaining the highest levels of security."

The outage appears to have occurred around 3:30 p.m. EDT.

The Los Angeles International Airport tweeted at 6 p.m. EDT that systems are "slowly getting back to normal and officers have processed the waiting passengers at LAX with no significant impact to flights."

But the delay caused long lines at several airports as customs officials were processing travelers manually. Many travelers took to Twitter to vent their frustration.

Traveler Jessica Gioglio said she and other travelers from London are trapped on an airplane.

"Landed at @BostonLogan from London 20+ minutes ago & we cannot leave the plane due to an issue with the computer systems at immigration," Gioglio said. "We're hearing it is a nationwide issue and not unique to Logan Airport so they have to process everyone manually."