Britain: Air Traffic Control System Failure
December 12th, 2014Via: Guardian:
London airspace has been severely restricted after a system failure at the main national control centre in Swanick.
Passengers travelling to and from London’s major airports face lengthy delays and cancellations, with European controllers suggesting skies would be restricted until 7pm GMT.
The restriction, which appears to have been sparked by either a computer failure or power outage, is likely to divert and disrupt hundreds of international flights, with aviation experts warning that the knock-on effects would be felt far beyond London.
A spokeswoman for Nats, the air traffic controllers, confirmed there was a technical failure at Swanwick, Hampshire, the major control centre for the southern UK airspace.
She said: “We are in the process of getting the incident response mobilised. We don’t know what the cause is but there is a technical failure.
“We’re sorry if it causes any delays today. Our priority is to understand what has gone wrong and get things working as quickly as possible.”
