A critical software flaw in the UK’s air traffic control system caused a sudden, widespread disruption last week, corrupting flight data in an instant and triggering six hours of chaos for airlines and travelers. While the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) has acknowledged the technical failure, government officials have raised concerns that the incident’s root causes—including why the defect went undetected—remain unclear. The delay in declaring a major incident, from its initial occurrence at 10 a.m. to the formal declaration at 12:30 p.m., has also drawn scrutiny. With ministers demanding urgent answers, the investigation’s findings could reveal deeper systemic weaknesses in aviation safety protocols.
Error first occurred at 10am but major incident was not declared until 12.30pm, says reportBusiness live – latest updatesA software defect in part of the UK’s air traffic control system corrupted flight data “in the space of a millisecond”, leading to a six-hour outage and mass airline cancellations and delays across the UK last week, National Air Traffic Services has said.But ministers said the Nats report into the incident still left questions unanswered, saying they needed “to urgently understand why this issue was not discovered and fixed before it caused chaos”. Continue reading...
