LOS ANGELES, Aug 7: Aeroplanes were backed up at Los Angeles International airport, the world’s fifth busiest, for at least an hour on Monday after an instrument landing system failed, an airport spokesman said.

Spokesman Tom Winfrey said equipment on one of the airport’s two working runways failed and the Federal Aviation Administration was trying to restore it as soon as possible. An FAA spokesman in Washington, Ian Gregor, said the failure in Los Angeles would likely cause a ‘ripple’ throughout the system.

“What happened essentially is the ILS (Instrument Landing System) for the inner runway on the airport’s south side went down this morning and temporarily knocked the airport’s arrival rate down from 56 planes an hour to 32,” Gregor said.

“Air traffic responded by turning the airport around so the planes were landing from the west and departing to the east and that has brought the arrival rate back up to pretty much what it was at before,” he said.

The FAA website said there was a ‘ground stop’ in effect for flights arriving at Los Angeles International, which means that flights en route to the airport were being delayed at their point of departure to avoid clogging up the airways.—Reuters