Latest news with #radarfailure
The Sun
30-07-2025
- The Sun
Urgent message sent to pilots after all outbound UK flights grounded by radar failure revealed
TENS of thousands of holidaymakers were hit by more air chaos yesterday — just four months after the Heathrow blaze shambles. A radar system failure shut down the country's air traffic control network on one of the busiest days of the year — affecting some 577,000 passengers on 3,080 flights. 6 6 6 Things were slowly returning to normal last night but a total of 45 departures were cancelled, 35 arriving flights diverted and hundreds of others delayed — with Heathrow the worst affected airport. Furious airline bosses have called for the head of the air traffic control chief after they had to rip-up timetables. A similar 2023 failure cost carriers £100million. And in March a fire at an electricity substation shut Heathrow, costing tens of millions of pounds as 270,000 air passenger journeys were cancelled or delayed. Yesterday's meltdown hit the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) hub at Swanwick, Hants. Air traffic controllers tasked with safely handling around 2.2million flights and 250million passengers in UK airspace each year had no option but to shut down because they were no longer certain of the gaps between planes. Unfolding chaos The Sun can reveal cockpit crews were urgently messaged: 'Please be aware that there is an ATC radar failure at Swanwick which has zero rated UK airspace as of 14.30 GMT. 'We would appreciate your patience whilst we work through this unforeseen disruption.' An easyJet captain whose plane bound for Budapest was stuck on the tarmac at Gatwick for an hour joked: 'They've turned it off and turned it back on again.' But it was no laughing matter as major airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Edinburgh and Birmingham were forced to suddenly suspend services. Delayed holidaymakers vented their frustration at the unfolding chaos. Jane Ainsworth told how her flight from Kos to Birmingham was forced to land in Brussels. Robin Ilott, 62, from Waterlooville Hants, was stuck on a plane at Heathrow for two-and-a-half hours. He said: 'The pilots are as frustrated as everyone else. It's better safe than sorry, you don't want to get up there and find that there's planes everywhere.' Airlines were furious at the latest embarrassing failure in operations — and one of Ryanair's bosses called for the resignation of Nats chief Martin Rolfe over the error. Neal McMahon insisted: 'It is outrageous passengers are once again being hit with delays and disruption due to Martin Rolfe's continued mismanagement of Nats.' 6 6 6 He went on: 'Yet another ATC system failure has resulted in the closure of UK airspace, meaning thousands of passengers' travel plans have been disrupted.' Referring to a previous flight failure under Mr Rolfe's leadership, Mr McMahon said it was clear 'no lessons have been learnt'. And he called on Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander to intervene. At 5.30pm Ms Alexander said: 'I have been informed systems have now been restored but continued disruption is expected, and passengers should check with individual airports for advice.' Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said: 'It is utterly unacceptable that after a major disruption just two years ago, air traffic control has once again been hit by a technical fault. "The public deserve to have full confidence in such a vital piece of national infrastructure.' I would have liked to see my personal role play out differently. Heathrow boss Thomas Woldbye Nats said yesterday: 'Our engineers have now restored the system that was affected this afternoon. 'We are in the process of resuming normal operations in the London area. We continue to work closely with airline and airport customers to minimise disruption.' The outage meant several flights scheduled to arrive in the UK were forced to circle airports or divert elsewhere. British Airways said the problem 'was entirely outside of our control' and is 'affecting the vast majority of our flights'. A spokesman said: 'We want to apologise to our customers for any inconvenience and assure them that our teams are working hard to get their journeys back on track as quickly as possible.' A spokesman at Heathrow, the UK's busiest airport, said: 'Flights at Heathrow have resumed following a technical issue at the Nats Swanwick air traffic control centre. 'We are advising passengers to check with their airline before travelling. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.' BLUNDERS PLAUGING UK FLIGHTS By Thomas Godfrey THE glitch that led to dozens of flights being diverted yesterday is the latest in a string of failures which have beset travellers at Britain's airports. The most recent was the chaos caused by a substation fire which shut Heathrow for a day in March. Before that, another National Air Traffic Services glitch led to disruption for 700,000 paswhen flights were grounded on August 28, 2023. The system went down and the engineer who could fix it was working from home. That cost about £100million. In July 2019, some 50 flights were cancelled and dozens delayed for hours at London airports following an 'issue with radar displays'. A year earlier, an overhaul of the Nats system at Swanwick, Hants, led to repeated delays for flights bound for Heathrow and Gatwick over three weeks. The centre was also hit with high staff sickness rates in 2017, which caused delays throughout the summer. In 2014, Swanwick was knocked offline by a power failure, causing 84 flights from Heathrow and 19 from Gatwick to be cancelled. The centre's telephones cut out in 2013, and in 2008 another computer fault wrecked 88 planned flights. Gatwick confirmed technical issues caused a complete halt to departures while the situation was being resolved. After March's Heathrow fire chaos airport boss Thomas Woldbye — who slept through the decision to close the hub — admitted he had 'learnings' to take away. But he stopped short of apologising. The chief executive said: 'I would have liked to see my personal role play out differently.' He added: 'An organisation like ours has to be able to manage, whether the captain's on the bridge or not.' Energy regulator Ofgem has launched an official enforcement investigation after a report found the fire which caused the shutdown was due to a preventable technical fault at a substation. A probe by the National Grid found it was identified seven years ago. It discovered faulty fire safety equipment and moisture in electrical parts flagged in 2018 were not addressed, and maintenance at the North Hyde site was delayed again in 2022. The fire was caused by 'catastrophic failure' in a transformer, triggered by moisture entering electrical components. Heathrow said: 'A combination of outdated regulation, inadequate safety mechanisms and National Grid's failure to maintain infrastructure led to this catastrophic power outage.' Nats operates from Swanwick and Prestwick, near Glasgow. The £623million Swanwick centre — the size of nine football pitches — is responsible for controlling most of the airspace in England. Around 730 controllers, out of 1,100 total staff, control 200,000 square miles of airspace and other special military zones.
Telegraph
30-07-2025
- Telegraph
All planes grounded at London airports
4:32PM Analysis: Shutdown echoes summer 2023 The nationwide air traffic control shutdown this afternoon will immediately bring to mind the vast Nats outage of summer 2023. During that incident, which also happened during the key summer season, more than 700,000 passengers were stranded when flights had to be grounded following a technical glitch. A radar failure is said to be the cause of Wednesday's meltdown so far but details are, at the time of writing, scant. A simultaneous nationwide radar failure suggests at the very least a critical computer failure. The cause of that failure will be keenly scrutinised over the coming days, weeks and months. The full cost of that meltdown to airlines, airports passengers and others was around £100 million. Today's outage is shorter than 2023's four-hour meltdown, but the costs are likely to be in the same ballpark. An inquiry set up by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the regulator, into the August 28, 2023 incident found that Nats had rostered a support engineer to be on-call and working from home rather than on site that day, despite it being one of the busiest of the year in terms of passenger numbers. 4:31PM Problem resolved but disruption likely to continue The radar fault that forced the closure of all London-controlled airspace over the UK has now been fixed, Nats has said within the last few minutes, but knock-on delays are likely to continue. A spokesman for Nats said: 'Our engineers have now restored the system that was affected this afternoon. We are in the process of resuming normal operations in the London area. 'We continue to work closely with airline and airport customers to minimise disruption. 'We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.' 4:30PM 'Radar issues' causing nationwide shutdown London's skies are beginning to reopen, Eurocontrol has said within the last few minutes. The cause of the nationwide shutdown is said to be 'radar issues'. All of England and Wales' skies are controlled by Nats, the British air traffic control centre, from its HQ at Swanwick in Hampshire. A radar failure would leave controllers unable to see which aeroplanes are where in the sky, potentially affecting flight safety. The Telegraph has obtained footage from on board a plane at Faro airport in which an announcement blames 'radar system back in the UK' . 4:28PM No departures from Gatwick Gatwick Airport has confirmed that the 'technical issue' impacting Nats was impacting all outbound flights across the UK. A spokesman for Gatwick said: 'A technical issue impacting NATS is affecting all outbound flights across the UK. 'There are currently no departures from London Gatwick while the situation is being resolved. 'We are working with NATS to resume flights as quickly as possible. Inbound flights are still landing at the airport. Passengers should check the status of their flights with their airline.' 4:25PM Watch: Planes avoid the UK A timelapse from Flight Radar 24 reveals a plunge in the number of planes over the UK. Reports online suggested planes have been diverted to mainland Europe. 4:21PM Flights landing but skies sparse A Eurocontrol notice seen by The Telegraph instructed airlines that London airspace was closed to all incoming flights from 2.39pm GMT today. Flights that are still airborne over Britain appear to be landing safely as planned, according to Flight Radar 24 data, but planes appeared to be avoiding the airspace over London. 4:18PM Flights path over London 'limited' A spokesman for Nats, the air traffic control company in charge of Britain's skies, acknowledged a 'technical issue' but said he could give no indication of when the problems would be fixed. He said: 'As a result of a technical issue at Nats Swanwick air traffic control centre, we are limiting the number of aircraft flying in the London control area in order to ensure safety, which is always our first priority. 'We apologise for any delays this may cause. Our engineers are working hard to resolve the problem as quickly as possible and we are working closely with airlines to help minimise disruption. 'At this stage we cannot say how long it will be before operations are back to normal. 'Please check with your airline on the status of your flight.' 4:14PM Good afternoon Welcome to our live coverage. We will be bringing you all the latest updates from the reported closure of London's airspace.
Times
12-05-2025
- Times
Newark Airport hit by second radar outage in a fortnight
An American airport has experienced a second radar failure in less than two weeks, adding to concerns over the safety of air travel in the United States. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, air traffic control employees guiding aircraft in and out of Newark International Airport in New Jersey were unable to communicate or see radar displays for 90 seconds on Friday. The screens went dark at about 4 am at the facility, in Philadelphia, which oversees air traffic at Newark. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association said ground staff were 'unable to see, hear or talk' to pilots. The FAA blamed the incident on its 'antiquated air traffic control system [which is] affecting our workforce'. It is the second blackout the airport has experienced
New York Times
07-05-2025
- General
- New York Times
How Lost Radar and Silent Radios Have Upended Newark Air Travel
On a recent afternoon in Philadelphia, an air traffic controller began shouting that he had lost his radar feed for planes flying in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport. Some of his colleagues still had radar but their radios went dead, prompting frantic calls to their counterparts in New York urging them to keep their planes away from Newark's airspace. Then, for 30 harrowing seconds until the radios came back, there was nothing more to do but hope — as they had no means of telling pilots how to avoid crashing their planes into one another. Shortly after that, one controller discovered a trainee, who had been directing Newark traffic under supervision just moments earlier, shaking in the hallway.
