U.S. Airline Security System Suffers Brief Disruption

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security computer system that checks airline passengers against terrorism watch lists experienced a brief service disruption on Wednesday, federal officials said.

The problem lasted about 90 minutes and there have been no indications the technology disruption was malicious in nature, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement.

During the outage, Customs and Border Protection officers processed international travelers using alternative procedures, the agency said.

Customs and Border Protection did not specify which U.S. airports experienced disruptions, but NBC News reported delays in security screenings at New York City's John F. Kennedy Airport.

Similar problems were reported in Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Baltimore, it said.

(Reporting by Eric Beech in Washington and Victoria Cavaliere in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Cooney and Richard Pullin)