iPad problems force American Airlines delays

Some American Airlines flights were delayed overnight due to problems with the pilots' iPads.

One passenger traveling from DFW Airport to Austin tweeted about the problem around 8 p.m. Tuesday. He said his captain's iPad had crashed.

"@AmericanAir thanks they have deplaned us in #DFW we're renting a car and headed to #ATX," Bill Jacaruso wrote.

A spokesman for the airline said there was an issue with a software application. In some cases planes had to return to the gate to access a WiFi connection to fix the problem.

In 2013, American replaced paper manuals, navigation charts and other material with tablets that have the same information. The effort to go paperless was meant to save the airline $1.2 million in fuel costs annually.

The maker of the app that crashed said something went wrong with a recent update.

A total of 79 flights were affected by the problem.