A computer glitch has caused major disruptions for thousands of passengers this week, leading to flight delays and cancellations. The issue, which started on Monday (August 28), forced air traffic controllers to manually input flight plans, resulting in chaos at all major UK airports.
Transport Secretary Mark Harper has described it as the worst incident of its kind in nearly a decade and has announced an independent review to investigate the matter. The faulty air traffic control system in the UK was identified as the source of the problem at 8.30am on Monday.
As a precautionary measure, the system switched to its backup mode to prevent controllers from receiving inaccurate and potentially dangerous information. Martin Rolfe, chief executive of National Air Traffic Services, explained the cause of the airport chaos in an interview with The Independent.
He described the initial crisis and the efforts made to restore the system, stating, “We were working towards restoring the system before 12.30[pm]… We knew that if we hadn’t resolved it by then, we would need to significantly reduce the flow of aircraft to avoid overwhelming the system and, more importantly, the controllers.
“Around halfway through that process, we realized that there was a reasonable chance we might not be able to fix it within the timeframe. The problem was unlike anything we had encountered before…”
Manually entering data is an extremely rare occurrence for air traffic control (ATC), but that was the only option earlier this week.
However, Rolfe mentioned, “The engineers managed to identify the problem and determine how to fix it. By 1.30[pm], we received news from the engineers that they believed they knew how to effectively recover the system, despite not knowing the root cause.”
Subscribe here for the latest news where you live
Within an hour, the ATC system was back up and running, but as Rolfe explained, “You don’t go from 10 percent to 100 percent instantly.” Consequently, passengers are now experiencing the aftermath of delays, with thousands of flights being cancelled and approximately 250,000 travelers affected.
Rolfe emphasized that passenger safety was never compromised and that the delays were necessary to prioritize safety.