Sprint network out in Oregon, Minnesota, and Washington

A fiber cut somewhere in the U.S. has led to major outages in Sprint's network. The hardest hit customer has been Alaska Airlines, which had to delay its flights.

Sprint users have taken to Twitter with the a fiery passion as the network has reported sizable outages in Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington. Perhaps most inconvenienced by the occurrence is Seattle-based Alaska Airlines, as it is unable to check in passengers. Flights are currently delayed as Sprint attempts to sort out the issue.

A statement issued by Sprint to TechCrunch, a fiber cut somewhere in the Pacific Northwest is responsible for the outage. How exactly one cut fiber can take down a network, we do not know. Differing reports come from Alaska Airlines, as it has stated the wire was cut in Wisconsin. One theory (my theory) is this is a continuation of the finger pointing that took place after the questionable Seattle Seahawks victory over the Green Bay Packers, but there is no truth to it.

While details are sparse, a few things do appear to be known: At least one fiber optic wire was cut and resulted in the wide-spread outages that transcend a single region and Sprint is desperately trying to solve the problem. According to the Associated Press, connection has been resorted for Alaska Airlines. The company had switched to manual check-ins in hopes of getting its passengers to their destinations. It is warning that there are likely still delays expected. We’ll have more as it develops.