Engineer working from home with password issue contributed to massive air traffic control failure
Fixing a massive air traffic control meltdown in 2023 was made more difficult because of password issues with a key engineer who was working from home, an inquiry has found.
More than 700,000 passengers suffered disruption when flights were grounded at UK airports on August 28 last year after air traffic control (ATC) provider National Air Traffic Services (Nats) suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan.
It is estimated the glitch cost the aviation industry £100m.
The inquiry, set up by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), makes several recommendations for improving air traffic control in the UK and highlights multiple failings that have been criticised by airlines that were left out of pocket due to the meltdown.
In response to its publication, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary called on Transport Secretary Louise Haigh to “take immediate action to fix Nats’ hopeless service”.
The inquiry found Nats rostered a Level 2 engineer to be on call rather than on-site that day, despite it being one of the busiest days of the year in terms of flight passenger numbers.
A more junior Level 1 engineer, who was on-site at Nats’ headquarters in Swanwick, Hampshire, began checks as soon as automatic flight planning systems failed at 8.32am.
The Level 2 engineer was contacted 34 minutes later but their password login details “could not be readily verified due to the architecture of the system”, the report stated.
After exhausting remote intervention options, it was agreed they would attend the control centre but it took a further one-and-a-half hours for them to arrive, which was three hours and 15 minutes after the incident began.
The report also noted that the assistance of Frequentis Comsoft, which manufactured the system that shut down, was “not sought for more than four hours after the initial event”.
A solution was identified by the company within 30 minutes of it being contacted.
Some aviation organisations said it took too long for them to be informed about the August 2023 failure, with several first hearing of it from media coverage.
Eurocontrol, which coordinates ATC in Europe, was not alerted until 10.43am, more than two hours after the incident began.
The report said: "Most of the airlines and airport representatives agreed very strongly that earlier warning of a potential problem would have made a considerable difference to their ability to make precautionary preparations, which in turn would have reduced the negative impact on passengers.
"There were also concerns over the "quality and style" of Nats’ communications, and "considerable frustration about the inability to ask questions or to find out detailed information", it added.
EasyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren said airlines and passengers were “severely let down by Nats”, and a failure of this scale “can never be allowed to happen again”.
The inquiry found that an automatic flight planning system and its backup shut down within 20 seconds after a plan for a flight from Los Angeles to Paris (Orly) was received.
This was because of a “unique set of circumstances not previously encountered”, including a pair of duplicate three-letter waypoints, which are used to identify locations.
The system had previously processed more than 15 million flight plans without this scenario being seen.
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The failure led to flight plans being manually processed, decreasing the rate from up to 800 per hour to 60 per hour.
Restrictions on the number of flights allowed to take off from UK airports were in place from 11am until 6.03pm on August 28, but disruption continued for several days due to aircraft and crew being in the wrong location.
The report recommends Nats should consider rostering a Level 2 engineer on site during busy periods such as the summer and that they should give earlier notice to airlines and airports of possible disruption.
A Nats spokesman apologised for the “inconvenience passengers suffered” because of the “very unusual technical incident”.
Ms Haigh said: “My priority is to ensure all passengers feel confident when they fly.
"That’s why my department will look to introduce reforms, when we can, to provide air travellers with the highest level of protection possible."
The inquiry noted that a number of affected passengers waited “many weeks, and in some cases months” for airlines to refund their out-of-pocket expenses.
It recommended that the CAA is given the power to “take consumer enforcement action” without going through the courts, which could include the ability to fine airlines.
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