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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Raphael Boyd

Military aircraft reportedly blamed for UK air traffic control outage

A traveler with a pink suitcase looks up at flight boards near a long airport queue
Passengers at Heathrow airport in west London during the disruption on Tuesday. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

The air traffic control outage that caused thousands of flights to be grounded across the UK earlier in the week was caused by a military aircraft entering “spurious” flight data into the system, according to a report.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers were affected after more than 2,000 flights were cancelled on Tuesday when the system used by the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) shut down for four hours.

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