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On September 18, British air traffic control operator NATS announced that a recent outage affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers was caused by a software defect in its flight data system. The incident led to 2,000 flight cancellations and cost airlines millions of pounds. Transport minister Heidi Alexander criticized the disruption as "completely unacceptable" and called for an independent review by the Civil Aviation Authority to understand why the issue went undetected. NATS CEO Martin Rolfe stated that safety was never compromised during the outage and that a permanent fix is being tested and will be deployed soon.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-09-18,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
Story summary
On September 8, a software defect caused widespread air traffic control chaos across the UK, leading to over 2,000 flight cancellations and affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers. The incident was traced back to a small section of coding in the National Airspace System that allocates identification codes for aircraft on radar, which malfunctioned when two requests were processed simultaneously. This issue disrupted flights at major airports like Heathrow and Gatwick, with some travelers left stranded or forced to cancel their trips.
Catie and Phil Allen, for instance, had a holiday in Slovenia canceled after their flight from Luton Airport was grounded; despite receiving a refund from British Airways, they estimate losing over £1,300 due to unused accommodation and excursions. The UK government has ordered an independent review by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to investigate NATS' findings and enhance future resilience against such failures.
Written for “Air Traffic Control Software Glitch” on 2026-10-05,
grounded in this article and the 11 other(s) covering the same event.
British air traffic control outage caused by software defect, says operator
AI generated
LONDON –
asserted
LONDON → cause → defect
British air traffic control operator NATS said on Sept 18 an outage which affected hundreds of thousands of passengers last week was cause by a software defect.
asserted
affected → say → defect
The incident led to 2,000 flight cancellations and days of disruption, costing airlines millions of pounds as they scrambled to get crews and aircraft back in place and refund passengers.
asserted
they → lead → passengers
NATS chief executive Martin Rolfe said the shutdown was not related to a problem in 2023 which also caused widespread disruption, nor was it linked to military intervention – as reported by some media outlets last week.
asserted
it → say → outlets
He added that safety was at no point compromised during the incident.
asserted
safety → add → incident
“This was a software issue in a specific part of our flight data system, that we have traced to a small subsection of coding,” he said.
asserted
he → trace → coding
“The issue has been identified and mitigation is in place while a permanent fix is safety tested and deployed.”
asserted
fix → identify → place
Transport minister Heidi Alexander, who had last week demanded NATS produce a report on the matter and also ordered an independent review by the Civil Aviation Authority, said the disruption was “completely unacceptable”.
asserted
disruption → demand → Authority
“We need to urgently understand why this issue was not discovered and fixed before it caused chaos,” she said in a statement.
asserted
she → need → statement
The incident followed a shutdown in August 2023 which caused travel chaos, costing airlines £100 million (S$170 million).
asserted
which → follow → million
A smaller technical issue which NATS was behind in July 2025 also caused 150 cancellations.
asserted
NATS → cause → cancellations
Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline, has repeatedly for Rolfe to resign since the 2023 failure
asserted
Rolfe → resign → failure
The NATS report on the latest incident was triggered by a request for an identification code from an aircraft being followed by a request for a higher priority activity, pausing the first request.
“Had the higher-priority request arrived even one millisecond earlier or later, the update would have completed normally,” the report said.
asserted
report → trigger → request
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