Computer problem grounds planes at London airports

Thousands of UK passengers were stranded last Thursday by flight delays and cancellations due to a radar glitch.

Travel Insurance News - 02/10/2008

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A technical problem at one of the UK’s main air traffic control centres led to delayed departures and flight cancellations starting at airports in London and moving throughout Europe.

Airports worst hit were Gatwick and Heathrow, where only a small number of flights were able to take off when the radar glitch was found last Thursday afternoon.

It was at the Swanwick air traffic control centre in Hampshire where the fault occurred - leading to planes grounded in south-east England and then across Europe, as a wide swath of air space was closed.

Flights at all of southern England’s airports were kept from departing for 30 minutes, and then allowed to take off at 10-minute intervals. Later in the afternoon, the intervals were shorted.

At 6:00 pm, flights from Gatwick and Heathrow were departing on an interval of one flight every 2-3 minutes, as compared with the normal 90 second time between departures.

Many London-area flights were cancelled because of the disruption and delays.

A spokesperson for NATS, the UK’s air traffic control group, said that the radar problem meant keeping flights below 24.500 feet. Because of this restriction, many flights were prevented from taking off until the problem was solved.

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