A software error of just a millimeter of a second caused the major disruption in Britain's air traffic last week, according to the National Air Traffic Services preliminary report.
One error in control system software air traffic was the cause behind the chaos that caused delays and cancellations of flights across Britain, according to National Air Traffic Services (Nats).
The problem led to a six-hour shutdown, affecting the journeys of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The initial impact concerned departures from the London area, but then expanded, causing problems in flights across and outside the country.
Nats' preliminary report states that the problem was identified in part of the National Airspace System, which assigns codes to aircraft to identify them on radar.
According to the report, while processing a manual request for an aircraft code, A second request interrupted the procedure. When the processing was restarted, the software error resulted in the process not continuing properly, causing flight data to be corrupted. All this happened. «within a millisecond».
Nats CEO Martin Rolfe said the problem has been identified and temporary measures taken, while the permanent solution is under trial before it is implemented.
Government: «Why wasn't he spotted earlier?»
Despite Nats' explanation, British government called for further investigationTransport Minister Heidi Alexander said that, although it is positive that passenger safety was protected, it must be understood. «because the matter was not detected and corrected before it caused chaos».
The Civil Aviation Agency (CAA) undertook to examine Nats' findings, but also investment plans to enhance the resilience of systems in the future.
The independent assessment of CAA is expected to be published within six months.
Third major failure in a few years
The new damage caused reactions from airlines, with some requesting the removal of Nats CEO Martin Rolfe, as it was the third major air traffic control failure in Britain since the summer of 2023.
Rolfe argued, however, that this incident was not related to previous damage and rejected the speculation that it was caused by military intervention.
Nats said restrictions on flights across the country were imposed to restart the system. The restrictions lasted six hours, while it took more than two days to fully restore the accumulation of passenger travel problems.
