UK military aircraft data blamed for air traffic control failure: Report

According to the Saudi Gazette, citing a report from the Financial Times, a UK military aircraft is being blamed for the significant air traffic control failure that paralyzed British airspace earlier this week. The incident, which led to thousands of flight cancellations and widespread disruption for travelers, was initially attributed by the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) to a general technical failure.

Four individuals familiar with the matter indicated that a flight plan submitted by a military aircraft contained 'spurious' data. This specific input reportedly triggered a cascading failure within the wider air traffic control system, necessitating a complex and time-consuming manual restart process. The disruption persisted across Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving passengers stranded at major hubs across the United Kingdom.

NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe has issued a formal apology to the affected passengers, acknowledging the scale of the inconvenience caused by the outage. The incident has drawn sharp criticism from major airlines regarding the resilience of the UK's aviation infrastructure. In response to the growing scrutiny, the UK Civil Aviation Authority has announced plans to conduct an independent investigation into the root cause of the system failure, with findings expected to be published within the next six months.