Resolving an air traffic control meltdown in August 2023 was made more difficult because of delays in verifying the password of an engineer allowed to

More than 700,000 passengers suffered delays after password of engineer allowed to work remotely didn't work

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2024-11-15 14:00:03

Resolving an air traffic control meltdown in August 2023 was made more difficult because of delays in verifying the password of an engineer allowed to work remotely, an inquiry has found.

More than 700,000 passengers suffered disruption when flights were grounded at UK airports on August 28 last year after ATC provider National Air Traffic Services (Nats) suffered a technical glitch while processing a flight plan.

An inquiry set up by regulator the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) found that Nats rostered a Level 2 engineer to be on call rather than on site that day, despite it being one of the busiest 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.

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.

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