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UK Air Traffic Controller Blames a Millisecond-Software Glitch for Flight Cancellations – WTOP News

  • On Friday, the National Air Traffic Services revealed a software defect in its flight data system caused the September 8 outage, grounding more than 2,000 flights and affecting 300,000 passengers across UK airports.
  • The flaw occurred when a manual request for an aircraft identification code was paused for a higher-priority task, causing corrupted data 'in the space of a millisecond,' Nats said.
  • Stranded passenger Addie Kitson, 26, faced almost £100 in unexpected costs after her flight was diverted to Stockholm, spending 19 hours at the airport.
  • Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander described the disruption as 'completely unacceptable,' ordering the Civil Aviation Authority to launch an independent review due within six months.
  • Nats CEO Martin Rolfe apologized to affected passengers, stating "it's our job to get people where they want to go, quickly and without delay," as a permanent software fix is safety tested and deployed.
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UK air traffic controller blames a millisecond-software glitch for flight cancellations

A preliminary report has blamed a software defect for the cancellation of over 2,000 flights in the United Kingdom last week

·New York, United States
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Winnipeg Free Press broke the news in Winnipeg, Canada on Friday, September 18, 2026.
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