Key facts
- A UK air traffic control outage on Tuesday was reportedly caused by a military aircraft submitting spurious flight data.
- The incident led to over 2,000 flights being cancelled and affected hundreds of thousands of passengers.
- Nats operations manager Kathryn Leahy informed airport and airline managers about the system failure.
- Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has given Nats CEO Martin Rolfe one week to report on the shutdown's causes.
- An independent review into the incident has been commissioned by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
- The Ministry of Defence stated there is no indication of error on the part of the military.
The UK's air traffic control system experienced a significant outage on Tuesday, leading to the cancellation of over 2,000 flights and affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers. According to a report by the Financial Times, citing four individuals briefed on the incident, the shutdown was triggered by a flight plan submitted by a UK military aircraft that introduced "spurious" data into the system. This data caused a meltdown in the air traffic control systems used by National Air Traffic Services (Nats), which remained unfixed for several hours.
Nats operations officer Kathryn Leahy reportedly contacted numerous airports and airlines to inform them of the situation. Tensions reportedly escalated when Leahy explained that the flight processing system lacked a dedicated backup, partly due to Nats being in the process of a "complete overhaul of its systems" and the significant cost associated with duplicating its data.
The crisis has placed pressure on Martin Rolfe, the chief executive of Nats. He was summoned to a meeting by Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, who expressed her belief that the issue was not unavoidable and has given Rolfe a week to provide a report on the causes of the shutdown. Additionally, Alexander has commissioned an independent review by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
This incident is the most severe to impact British commercial airspace since August 2023, when a technical issue caused nearly 1,600 flights to be delayed. Following that outage, Nats faced criticism, and the CAA issued 34 recommendations for system improvements, all of which Nats stated had been fully implemented. Rolfe has ruled out a cyber-attack, suggesting the cause is something unprecedented in Nats' 50 years of operation.
Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary has been vocal in his criticism, accusing Rolfe of dishonesty and stating his position is untenable. He argued against further investigations and parliamentary hearings, suggesting they would not lead to effective change or resilience. The widespread delays resulted in some passengers waiting for over four hours for information, and some flights were diverted to airports as far away as Germany. Passengers affected are unlikely to be eligible for compensation due to the incident being classified as "extraordinary circumstances". The Ministry of Defence has stated that there is no indication of error on the military's part, pending the ongoing Nats investigation.